Your Arms Feel Like Home
by dorcas.aveline.hill
Summary: April and her brothers might never live in a penthouse on Billionaires' Row, but they own the rooftops and the night. Now they're meeting new people and encountering new threats. They have to decide if they want to continue living in the safety of the shadows, or let their new friends bring them into the light. (There may be romance, but it'll be background stuff)
1. Where I've Never Been

**CHAPTER 1 - Where I've Never Been**

The children had made a wrong turn somewhere. Shadows fell away, lost in the brightness of a search light. The beam glided back and forth, and the children were center stage, on a dock without cover, with no darkness to hide in.

Behind them, water. No buildings to climb, no walls to scurry over. The children thought, swim for it, then thought, no, she can't keep up. Not as fast in the water. She needs land under her feet to make a clean getaway.

Before them, between them and freedom, six - no, seven men. Large, all towering high, and armed. Four with knives, two with handguns, one seems unarmed, but they remembered their fathers words. Never trust appearances.

The men slowed as they approached, uncertainty making them hesitate. One stepped forward. The leader? "What the hell are you supposed to be?" The men lowered their arms. They understood now, these were kids. Weird looking kids, but just kids. The men must have thought, this'll be a piece of cake.

The children didn't answer. Exchanged looks. A moment of silent communication. A raised brow. A crooked smile. The children had a plan of action.

"It ain't Halloween." The big guy in front tucked his gun in the back of his pants. Dumb move. Underestimated them. "What kind of costumes -"

"Sorry." The oldest child, the eldest boy, spoke up. Soft voice, small smile. "We're not wearing costumes."

He charged. The other four followed him. Well trained.

The men regretted thinking this was a joke.

Swords slashing, coming down hard on the remaining firearm, before the man holding it could get his finger on the trigger.

The rest was easy. Knives were blocked, punches ducked. They returned blows, weapons sheathed, even the swords now that the gun was out of play. They took damage. You couldn't go unarmed to a knife fight and not take cuts. She dodged and bounced like a jumping jack. She lacked the natural armor of the other four, so had to be creative to stay out of the knives' range, and the big guys were aiming at her, thinking her the easiest target.

They took exception to these thugs targeting their sister.

A knife thrust hard, should have been able to kill the victim, a straight shot to the liver. Instead, the blade crumpled. The guy holding it swore loudly and dropped the now useless weapon.

Fist to his face. He fell.

Block. Dodge. Punch. These were kids? They hit harder than most men! And the girl might as well be a flea on a dog's hide, fast and furious. She couldn't land as hard a blow as her brothers, but all she had to do was let them wear themselves down chasing her.

Her brothers took the men down for her.

One man went down like a tree in a forest. Now the girl pounced, not with fists, but with tightly wound cord, metal/plastic/rope. He fell on his face; she planted her foot on the back of his neck, caught his arm in a loop of the zip-cord. Had him hogtied in seconds.

The boys brought the men down, disarmed them, tripped them, laid them out prone. They found the zip-cord impossible to unwind, impossible to break. It didn't bite into the skin like regular metal cord would, but couldn't be snapped, except by the clever little device on the girl's belt that nicked it off at whatever length she chose.

Seven men, tied and helpless, hollering loudly, cursing. Asking what the fuck, what the hell?

A slap of duct tape across the lips. Not a perfect gag, but it would keep them quite long enough for the kids to get back to the shadows.

The youngest boy laughed, wiped blood and sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. "Welp, that was fun!"

"Yeah, let's not do that again," middle-kid said dryly.

"Bye, guys!" the girl sang. Red hair, sticky and wet with sweat.

They ran. The men struggled to sit up, to get free, trying to see which way the children went.

The kids fled the light. Found the shadows. Became the shadows. It wasn't just a technique. Not just the girl's night-time camouflage outfit blending in the dark. One moment the kids were there, three-dimensional objects in space. The next moment?

They might as well have melted like snow in July.

All that remained was an echo of laughter. The thrum of feet on the pier. The whip of wind flowing around them.

The big guy with the gun in the back of his pants, that he couldn't even get to with his arms tightly wound to his body, stared at the empty space where they'd been a moment before, and wondered if he hadn't just seen his first ghosts.

* * *

April loved summer nights.

The biggest problem with New York City was that all the stars in the night sky weren't visible. There was far too much light pollution from the skyscrapers, and the compact city growing ever upward. April found the lack of starlight disappointing, but the illuminated skyline almost made up for it.

Instead of focusing on the vanished Milky Way, she trained her camera on Billionair's Row. The buildings had a sort of stark beauty she liked, though if asked, she would admit the older, less minimalistic buildings were her favorite.

"Yer gonna lose it if y'aint careful."

Raph stood beside her on the edge of the XYZ building, watching her adjust the focus. He had a bad cut from where one of the gang members had caught him with the tip of a knife blade, but aside from that, he'd done a good job coming out unscathed.

The camera flashed. She advanced the film and quickly took two more pictures. "I haven't dropped it yet," she said without looking at him.

Raph watched April lean precariously out on the edge and grabbed her belt, arm extending as he let her swing out as far as she could go. She needed to get the perfect angle for this picture. One more shot, and she let Raphael haul her back onto the roof properly.

The other three sat in the center of the roof, looking each other over for injuries. Michelangelo had the first aid kit he wore on the back of his belt out, rubbing something April guessed was antiseptic over a bad wound on Leonardo's shoulder, then pressed a pad of gauze to it before taping it down. He completed the wound care by taping a Scooby-Doo band-aid on top of the dressing.

Leonardo looked at Mike's handiwork with no little amusement.

Donatello had several nasty slashes on the inside of his elbow. Mike cleaned them up and graced him with Spongebob, which Donnie flaunted.

April flopped down dramatically. "It's horrible! I'm exhausted! I'm completely worn out, and I must be near death!" She sprawled beside Mike like a dying woman begging for a drop of water.

Mike held up a band-aid. "I'm out of Barbie."

"Aw, come on!"

"I've got Scooby for you."

"I'm crushed! _Crushed!_"

Leo mock-frowned. "What's wrong with Scooby? _ I_ got Scooby."

She flung the back of her hand over her eyes, trying to look like a tragic figure from a Renaissance painting, and only managed to look like a gangly kid who hadn't grown into her feet yet. "I'm a damsel. A princess. A goddess! I deserve Barbie on my band-aid."

Mike started tucking it back in the first aid kit. "Well, since you didn't actually get hurt, and you only want Barbie -"

April thrust a pristine arm out at him. "Gimme Scooby."

He found a random spot on her arm where she could show it off nicely and stuck the bandaid on her.

Raphael rolled his eyes and started cleaning up his own cheek, preferring to tend his own wounds, rather than have Mike do it. "I swear ta God yer both five."

"Seven," April corrected. "I don't believe in Santa Claus."

At fourteen, she had the awkward grace of a well-trained ballerina with too much leg and not enough hip or bust.

Her brothers were more well-proportioned, though one could tell by looking at them that they were going to get a lot taller, and sooner rather than later. Well, if one could look at them without screaming in panic. Or attacking. Not too many people had ever seen them, but on the handful of occasions they were noticed, attacking and screaming were the default actions of whoever looked at them.

They were giant turtles.

And they didn't look like turtles should have looked, either. They looked like people that had been put together with turtle parts, which was not how they should have looked when they started getting bigger. April's daddy had said as much.

Leonardo was tall, about 5'9", and getting taller. April was slightly displeased with this situation, because it meant he would be able to pick her up and dangle her upside down soon, which he had threatened the last time she'd stolen the last pudding pop from him, and the bossy bastard might just do it, too. He carried his swords strapped to his back, extra zip-cord in his belt, and rolls of film April begged him to hold for her when she couldn't fit them in her own belt pouch. She considered him the perfect accessory - a purse that didn't get cluttered because he'd refuse to carry too much for her. At eighteen, he was the oldest son, and he made sure everyone knew it, especially when their dad wasn't around. April loved him anyway. _ Bossy bastard_.

With his cheek cleaned up, Raphael dropped to a crouch beside April, holding out his uninjured arm. "I want Pokemon," he said. Mike stuck his tongue out, but found a Pickachu bandage and slapped it on Raph's forearm.

Raph was sixteen but stood two inches taller than Leo. He was a little self-conscious of his big feet that their father kept assuring him he would grow into. He wasn't always the easiest person to get along with, naturally rebelling every time Leo pretended to be an adult. Sometimes he lost his temper, but April found ignoring him until he got out of his funk the best way to deal with his drama. Most of the time, Raph was fun to be around, and he usually just indulged her in whatever she wanted to do. Raph carried a pair of sai tucked in his belt.

Michaelangelo, at fifteen, was the baby of the boys, and at 5'6" was still quite a bit taller than April. It was actually Mike's fault they'd gotten lost and had run into those bums. Their father had shooed them out of the house with express orders not to come home before midnight, but not after two AM. They still had time to kill, and Mike had come up with a great idea for keeping busy, but the boy couldn't find his own way out of a paper bag if he had a compass and a map. He always hauled around the first-aid kit, along with a pair of nunchaku and a bag he carried to hold whatever cool things he happened to find on their nights out. Last count, he had two sea shells, a dirty magazine, and a police-style whistle, but April didn't know if he'd added to his collection since they left home.

Before she could poke her nose in Mike's stuff, Donatello scooted beside her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her onto his lap. "Did you get the pictures you wanted?"

"Yep!" She squirmed in his grip, getting loose and popping the film out of the camera. She thrust the roll at him for him to take. Donnie took it, freeing up her hands to reload the camera. "I wanna get some more though, before we head back."

Don tucked the film away in his belt for her. "Digital cameras don't need film," he teased. April planned on Donnie spending his Saturday morning developing the film for her. She was still learning how to do it on her own, but until she was more sure of herself, she wanted Don's skillful hands at work on her pictures.

"Film looks better," she said, not looking up. She wound the camera ahead until it was ready to start a new series of photos.

Leo was absently wrapping his toes up in Superman bandaids. "Digital's cheaper," he said.

April rolled her eyes. "Mister Adult."

Don was seventeen, second-oldest, but he never talked down to April the way Leo did sometimes. He might pick on her love of "old-fashioned" things, but Don had a way of taking her seriously that Leo lacked.

Mike smacked Leo's hand and took back the still-wrapped band-aids before their fearless leader could waste the rest of them. "Hey." He looked around, squinting in the darkness to make out the skyline. "I think I know where we're at now."

"Uh-oh," Don breathed, and Raph snorted, "Right."

"No, really, I do! Look, if we head two blocks west, four blocks south, the store's right there." Mike pointed as if there were a building just beyond his fingertip. "We can be there in five minutes tops. _Tops!_"

"Isn't that what he said an hour ago?" Don asked Leo lightly.

"You mean, right before we got jumped? Yes, I seem to recall -"

"I'm serious this time!" Mike hopped to his feet. "Come on, it's like, ten-to-midnight, and he probably isn't expecting us until about one! We got time. Unless you want to go home early and go right to bed."

Raphael snorted. "Oh, hell no. C'mon, it's better than bein' stuck inside."

Don rolled his eyes, but stood up with the other boys, throwing his vote with Mike. Leo blew a sigh out his nose and shook his head lightly. "We're going to get in serious trouble."

"We're not!" Mike protested. "Swear to God, no alarm system. We could walk right in and nobody would know."

Leo poked April in the side where she lay serpentine on the roof. "Come on. I can see I'm not going to win this one."

April mock-swooned and covered her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm too heavy to walk. Carry me!"

Raph said, "Bye," and took off across the rooftops. Leo shrugged and followed. Mike had the bad grace to wave at her before giving chase.

"Hey!" She jumped to her feet, stomping one foot. "Some superheroes they are! They just left me here!"

"Yep." Donnie patted her shoulder and proceeded to leave April behind as well.

_Cheeky bastards, all of them_, she thought and raced to catch up.


	2. What Works For Us

**CHAPTER 2 - What Works For Us**

"So here's a philosophical question for you: is it really theft if we're paying exact change plus tax?"

Mike squished into the corner against the back wall of the liquor store (after only getting them slightly lost one last time before finding it) and watched intently while Donnie picked the lock.

Leo pulled a long face. "It's still breaking-and-entering. And we're underage." He stood squished on the other side, looking around furtively, as if he were expecting their father to step out of the shadows at any moment and catch them red-handed.

April considered his argument. "In America. Not other countries."

Leo looked at her. "What country are we in?"

"Doesn't mean we're wrong. Could be a bad law."

"It's not a bad law."

"Are you sure?"

Donnie thrust a hand straight up between the pair. "Hi! Remember me? I'm trying to concentrate here!"

Mike looked puzzled. "Why do you need your ears to concentrate on picking a lock?"

"Someone hit him for me."

Raph gave Mike a light smack across the back of his head. Mike rubbed his head, not the least bit perturbed, and Donnie said, "Bingo!" The back door opened. Everyone went very still, waiting for any indication of an alarm going off, silently or otherwise. Even Mike was frozen, waiting, despite being the one who claimed the store alarm had gone on the blink and nobody had bothered to replace or repair it yet. When, after a moment, they were certain the cops weren't on their way, the group relaxed.

April chuckled nervously as they made their way inside. "So we're officially criminals?"

Don gave her a light nudge with his elbow. "Only if someone catches us."

"Which we're not going to let happen," Leo said pointedly. "Think you can get the register working, Kitten?"

April snorted, "No problem," and set to work on it.

"Oooh, Kaluah!"

"No." Leo grabbed Michelangelo by the bandana tails and yanked him back. "We're buying beer and then we're leaving. Raph, get me two Bud Lights."

Raphael leveled him a look that could have brought down a mountain. "I ain't letting ya drink piss water." He thrust two Shiner Blondes at his older brother. For himself, Raph selected a six-pack of Shiner 97, and snagged a bottle of Blue Moon for April.

"Bingo!" April sang out. The register chirped for her and the cash drawer extended. There was no till, naturally, but that didn't matter. "Bring 'em over."

She rang up the Blondes, the 97, and the Blue Moon. "Can I have anoth-"

"No," Raph said.

Annoying, but April didn't feel like getting into it with him.

Mike brought over a six-pack of some weird IPA thing called El Dorado, while Donnie grabbed a six of Guinness Extra Stouts. When nobody was looking, Don dropped her a wink. She ducked her head and hid a smile. At least one of the boys wasn't going to baby her tonight.

She rang it all up. Leo shrugged and dropped several neatly-folded bills on the counter top. "Alright, not exact change. They can call it a tip."

"They want a tip," Donnie said, "here's a tip - get a new security system."

"Ah, Donnie." Raph slapped Don on the shoulder. "Nobody robs nobody in _dis _part 'a town. Billionaires' Row's right down the street. Who's gonna break in here?" He smirked and snagged his six-pack, leading the way out the back door.

"Well, I ought to leave the door unlocked on principle," Don said. He didn't, though. Locking up was easier than unlocking the door without a key.

They stuck to the shadows, returning to their rooftops. _Their _rooftops - nobody else in the city could claim them the way the kids did.

Running was freedom. Was near-flight. Rooftop to rooftop was a straight path that only required a leap of faith, something all of them took fearlessly. The boys were machines of muscle and sinew that sprung and landed with precision. April was a little goat, her sneakers skidding on landing, but always recovering her balance in an instant, never losing her footing. They flung themselves at a building that towered over the roof they ran across, catching hold of window ledges, of siding and brick, of metal fire escapes, all with no more sound than a quiet sigh of mortar and a gentle shiver of metal, and clambered skyward, onto the next roof. Every movement was finesse.

They moved fluidly, unseen, from building to building, following the bright moonlight tonight, until they found a good spot with a nice view and plenty of room. It wasn't the observation deck at The Rock, but they had a decent view of Central Park and the skyline.

April unhooked her camera from the back of her belt. All the buildings glowed like fireflies in the darkness. She photographed buildings, getting wide angle shots of several buildings, then photographed people dancing in the street far below them, and even managed to get several shots of a party bus moving slowly down a side street. The music drifted up as the bus passed by. Mostly dance remixes of popular tunes. April swayed, feeling the rhythm, then turned back to her brothers. They sat on the edge of the roof across from her, beers settled neatly against the ledge wall, safe from falling over. She seated herself between Mike and Don, kicking her legs like a little kid. Donnie handed her a bottle from his six-pack instead of the Blue Moon Raph had picked out for her. Either Raph wasn't paying attention or he'd decided it wasn't worth arguing about.

They enjoyed the sounds of the city for a while, drinking in the traffic noises, a siren in the distance, and especially the sound of the rushing wind blowing past them.

"Pretty night," Mike said.

"It's going to start getting cold next month," Leo said. He pulled a grimace that the others sympathized with. Of all of them, Leonardo felt the cold the worst, though he had learned how to power through it. This was probably going to be the last time they could get out for a long night before the weather got really nasty. That was probably the main reason their father chased them out for the evening.

They had never kept to a strictly "human" schedule; the end of September marked break period from intellectual learning and a return to heavy physical exercise. More advanced combat lessons, extended sparring practice in the dojo, and "winter cleaning," where their entire home was inspected from bottom to top, searched out for any weaknesses in either defense or in structural integrity.

Donnie took a long swig of his beer. "The service manual for the Triumph came yesterday."

Raphael grinned widely. "Awesome!"

"You know we're going to have to start from scratch with the engine," Donnie said.

Raph shrugged. "We gotta start somewhere."

"Oh, God," Mike sighed. April buried her face in her hand.

In March, Raphael and Donatello had pooled their funds and purchased a pile of junk they claimed was a 1973 Triumph Bonneville T120V. According to them, it was a motorcycle. Leo called it a relic of a bygone era. Mike declared it a desperate cry for help. April had hummed "Taps" over it and covered it with an old table cloth, the better to shield the remains from impressionable eyes.

Despite its sad condition, Donnie and Raphael played around with it throughout the spring and summer, trying to catalog all the parts and determine what needed the most attention. Don tried looking for instructions online and came to the conclusion they needed a good, solid, hard copy of the service manual if they wanted to get it back to working condition - the idea of smearing grease and assorted bits of metal over his computer rubbed him the wrong way, and anyway, a manual took up less room than a laptop.

Raph wasn't inclined to talk as much as, say, Michelangelo, and if Donnie got lost in a project, he could be silent for hours while he observed or made notes or whatever he was doing. Get them on the subject of the Triumph, though, and you couldn't shut them up.

Automotives not being her thing, April quickly cut in before they could start talking specifications or spark plugs or whatever went into making a motorcycle. "Think Splinter will start training me on the sword this winter?"

"Nope," Raphael said.

She felt a little startled. "What do you know that I don't?"

"You don't got the muscle mass." He took a long swallow of beer, finished the bottle, and set it down behind him, fetching another one.

Without looking at Raphael, Leo casually reached out a hand and yanked hard on his bandana tails. Raph's head jerked. He spat out a, "_Fuck, Leo!_" and glared at his older brother.

Leo shook his head warningly. "That's between her and Father. Keep your beak out of it."

Mike said, "I think you could -"

Leo interrupted. "You, too, Mikey. Father's the Master. He decides who trains with what."

"Thank you," April said. She brought her bottle to her lips and was surprised to find it empty. "These go too fast."

Donatello handed her another. Raph watched the exchange silently. He could be such a judgy bastard sometimes, even if he didn't come out and say anything. April quite deliberately opened and drank half the bottle while he watched. She wasn't some baby anymore, after all.

Mike rolled his eyes at all the unnecessary drama. "I'm _staying out of it_," he said, pointedly looking at Leo, "but I think you can tell Father what you want to learn. You don't know he'll say 'no' unless you try, right?"

"Mmm." April shrugged. "I guess. Just, if we're gonna be stuck inside all winter, I want to learn something interesting. I hate going into lock-down." She banged her heels against the side of the building. "I feel like a rabbit hiding in a hole in the ground."

Raph reached behind Don to grab her pigtail, but he only gave a little yank, not a rough pull. "Yeah." His version of rough sympathy. April rubbed her head, thinking about the long, dark months ahead.

The collective mood was somber. The run had been fun, and the chase, but that couldn't dispel the dark cloud hanging over the five of them.

Mike snorted and unhooked a small cellular device from the back of his belt, muttering, "Screw it," under his breath. He poked at the touch screen. Music came out, blasting at first. He had to quickly lower the volume while the others winced. "Hang on, hang on."

The quality was a little tinny, but it was perfectly danceable. Stevie Nicks belted out,_ Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night, and wouldn't you love to love her?_ He set the phone on the edge of the ledge, climbing onto the roof proper and tugging on April's pigtails lightly. "C'mon, Kitten. I don't wanna waste the last long night out, y'know?"

April grinned and hopped over the ledge to join him. It wasn't exactly a dancing song, but it was her favorite, and Michelangelo was as inclined to indulge her as Leo or Raph.

Mike wrapped his right arm around her waist, taking her hand and giving her a quick spin before pulling her closer and taking the lead. Leo, Raph, and Donnie swiveled around to watch the two of them finding the rhythm. _She is like a cat in the dark, and then she is the darkness. She rules her life like a fine skylark, and when the sky is starless…_

April ignored the first icy breath of the wind against her cheeks and shut her eyes, pretending the whole world was watching, like she had a spotlight on her, and instead of tight-fitting, black-and-grey leggings and wrap-around shirt, she wore a long, flowing dress and fresh flowers in her hair.

_Rhiannon_, the background singers repeated, and then were abruptly cut off by a high-pitched voice suddenly crooning, _Ohhhh This is a story 'bout a guy named Al, and he lived in the sewer with his hamster pal, _and all of them were startled out of whatever reverie they were all in. Mike dropped April's hand and rushed for the phone, picking it up just as the jingle died. His thumbs flew as he texted madly.

Leo turned to Donnie. "Did you check in?" he asked a little anxiously.

Donnie shook his head. "_You_ were supposed to!"

"I thought _you _were! You told him you would!"

"I said _we_ would! _We_, as in 'any one of us!'"

Between them, Raph looked disgusted. "You two're hopeless."

Mike finished typing out his text and listened for the beep. "He says make sure we're home on time."

"That's a given," Don said.

"Anything else?" Leo asked.

The phone beeped again. "Um. He wants a selfie of us," Mike said.

Don squished close to Raph on one side, Leo on the other. April climbed into Don's lap and ducked her head a little so she wasn't blocking either Raph or Donnie's faces. Mike crouched between Raph and Leo and held his phone up sideways, preparing to take a picture. "Everybody smile!"

He paused for a moment, then said, "Raph, c'mon, smile."

"I am smiling," said Raphael. He did not smile.

"Damn it, Raph, just smile!" Leo said, poking him in the side.

In retaliation, Raph parted his lips in an epic grimace, displaying teeth in shark-like proportions. Mike snapped the picture and sent it before Leo could protest.

"_Damn it_, Raph!"

"That was a smile! I smiled!"

The two of them went back and forth for a minute when the phone beeped again. Michelangel read the response, then groaned loudly, grabbing their attention.

"Eh?"

"Wha-?"

Mike rubbed his eyes, a headache apparently setting in. He handed the phone to Leo, who read it, shut his eyes, and blew a loud sigh out his nose, before passing the phone over to Raph.

Raph took the phone, read it, and screamed, "_Sonovabitch!_"

Donnie snatched the phone away while Raphael advanced on his younger brother. He held it out for April to read it with him.

The message was short and simple. "Next time, make sure the beer bottles are not in frame."

Her stomach sinking, she scrolled the text screen up. There, indeed, was the photograph, shot at an angle to get everyone in frame, two half-empty sixers included by Mike's feet.

"You couldn't pay attention for two seconds?" Raph hollered at Mike. Mike rolled his eyes, but his mouth pulled down guiltily at the corners. "_Gezuz, Mike!_"

"You guys didn't move! You just squished in! Why weren't _you _paying attention?"

Leo said, "Maybe we should pack it in." He looked regretfully at the untouched beer bottles.

"Yeah," April said, "head home early and avoid being beheaded at dawn. He can kill us immediately."

And then a flash of light.

Everyone blinked, caught off-guard.

"Was that lightning?" Mike asked.

"That was not lightning," Leo said.

All heads turned to April. As baffled as they were, she pointed both hands at her right hip, where her camera remained undisturbed. Meaning, if it wasn't her camera flash going off…

A second flash alerted the group to the direction of the camera. They turned and looked. Two buildings down, there was a mild commotion. Of the camera man, all they could make out at this distance was a hunched figure that looked like it was wearing a mask. It stood up straight when they looked at it, cocked its head, and then apparently figured out they realized it was there, because it turned on its heels and took off at top speed, jumping from one roof to the next, more clumsily than they, but surprisingly fast.

"Oh," said Leo. _"Shhhhhhhhit!"_


	3. With the Record Selection

**CHAPTER 3 - With the Record Selection and the Mirror's Reflection**

"_Shit!_" said Leo, and they all bolted after the figure in the dark.

By the time the kids had jumped across the alley from one roof to the other, the figure had dropped down and started cutting across Central Park. April got a good look at him before he disappeared into the undergrowth - a jean-jacketed figure with a hockey mask, hockey stick in hand, and a golf bag slung over his shoulder. Nothing else was in view.

The children stopped at the edge of the roof, looking down as the kid made his way through the greenery. Leo frowned and held up a hand, halting his siblings. "There are too many people down there."

"We have to get that camera back," Donnie said.

"I'm goin' after 'im," said Raphael. He dropped silently down the side of the building, catching himself and slowing his fall to the ground.

"_Raph!_"

Raph looked up at Leo. "I'll go get 'em, get the camera, an' come right back, okay, dad? Gimme five minutes." He gave a mocking salute, then made for the tree line.

Before she could jump after her brother, Donatello snagged April by the back of her wrap-around shirt and dragged her away from the edge. "Nope, nope, nope. Bad enough he's acting like an asshole. You're staying here."

"Yeah, but I'm human!" April said. "I can blend in. Better than he can!" She folded her arms and glared at Don.

He simply folded his arms in mimicry of her and smiled.

Leonardo half-dragged Mike from the edge. "If he wants to be an idiot, he can be by himself. Everybody else's staying here."

Michelangelo pouted and kicked at the gravel on the roof. "We never get to have any fun."

* * *

Raphael stuck to the shadows and remained hidden. The kid with the hockey mask wasn't very good at covering his tracks, or else he wasn't trying at all. Raph tracked him easily through the underbrush and seethed. It was getting really close to curfew. Not that he let anybody dictate how long he could stay out or anything, but Raph didn't make it a habit to disrespect his father. Because he was still a good son.

And a good son would get home when his dad asked him to. And not just because he didn't want to be grounded for a month.

"What ho, evil-doer!" someone yelled just behind the trees, and Raphael thought, _What the hell?_

There were thumps and grunts and the sound of thrashing. He poked his head through the brush. Well, there was the weirdo with the hockey mask, beating the crap out of a pair of dudes with his hockey stick. A chubby woman with a really cute Sanrio shirt and a worried look on her face stood nearby, bouncing nervously and watching the scene play out.

The wannabe hero fetched what looked like a purse from the ground and held it out to the woman. "Ma'am, I believe this belongs to you."

The lady snatched the purse, said, "Um, thanks," and took off, zipping up her jeans, which made Raph think she'd probably snuck off to piss in the bushes when she got waylaid. Well, maybe the weirdo was okay. Maybe he'd be willing to hand over the camera and they could part ways without any further incident.

The two guys hockey-mask-man had laid out staggered to their feet. Hockey-mask-man whirled on them. "Where you think yer goin'?" he crowed. "Party's just startin'!" He swung the hockey stick at their legs and knocked their feet out from under them.

So much for the kid being reasonable.

The guy sure didn't seem to be trained, but he was freakishly strong and incredibly agile, for a human. He knocked the thugs down again and was about to round on them when Raph realized he was going to probably bash their heads in. Outright murder being over the line, Raph stepped in, catching the weirdo in the back with a round-house kick that landed him on his face in the mud.

The two thugs looked up at Raph, startled.

Raph smiled. A real smile, this time. With lots of teeth.

The pair swore and scrabbled to their feet, trying to outrun each other as they bolted out of the shrubs for the safety of the lighted pathways. Raph watched them go with a grin.

"What da fuck?" Raph turned back to the weirdo. The guy pushed his hockey mask up. He was no Jason Voorhees. Snub nose, brown hair, brown eyes, and three hairs on his chin that were probably the most of a beard he could grow.

Raph cracked his knuckles. "I wan' the camera."

"Huh? Oh." The kid put his hand on the shoulder strap of his golf bag. A phone sat snug in the sewn-on pocket. "Yeah, 'bout that. No."

Raph snorted. "Why the hell not?"

"This's my photo journal. 'S how I keep track of shit goin' down in my city."

"_Your_ city?"

"Right, _my _city. I don't' see nobody else tryin' ta fix things. Guess it's up ta me. I don't see you doin' nothin'. Those thugs goin' after that lady, and all you was doin' was lookin' for my phone, and then like a dip-shit let 'em both go. I was gonna teach 'em a lesson!"

"You were gonna kill 'em, ya dork," Raph said. "You got the lady her bag back. Congrats. Yer a hero. Them slugs will find a hole to hide in, an' you can get 'em 'nother day. They can't do nothin' much else tonight."

"They're scum!" the boy said with heat. "They always find shit ta get into!"

"Ya don' look like no cop ta me," Raph said, raising a brow-ridge at the young vigilante's tattered jean jacket and boots. "It ain't yer job."

"It ain't _your_ job to tell me what to do, freak!" the boy shouted back.

Raph felt his stomach clench. _Freak?!_ "Don't piss me off more'n I am already. Gimme da phone an' let's call it a night." His voice was low and tight as he tried to keep his temper.

"Ya wanna come an' get it?" The kid swung his hockey stick in a wide arc. "Looks like ya need to be taught a lesson yerself."

"By _you_?"

"The class is Pain 101. Yer instructor's Casey Jones." The kid twirled the stick with obvious skill, despite the lack of training in his movements.

Very softly, in the distance, Raph could make out Leo's voice calling his name. "I don' wanna fight you, ya dumbass!"

"Well. Tough tits, pal."

"Casey Jones" came at him. Raph met him halfway.

Strike. Strike. Dodge. Casey was fast. Raph could almost appreciate the raw power the kid had. The natural speed. The way Casey knew where to aim on instinct. He was almost as good as Raph.

Almost.

Raphael blocked the strikes, lashed out with a fist, connected, but the kid seemed to absorb the blow instead of collapsing, almost like Raph was fighting one of his brothers. The little bastard was impressive. He still went down when Raphael threw a punch at his midsection, but the guy rolled with it and came up on his feet.

Raph took off the kid gloves and took out his sai. He wasn't planning on killing the asshole, just disarming him. Easier to do with his weapons in hand.

He heard the brush rustle long before April emerged, a deliberate act on her part to avoid startling him while he was fighting. If she hadn't meant to be heard, Raph would never have known she was coming.

The girl stood with her hands fisted on her hips, stamping one foot. "You were supposed to get the camera, not get in a fight, you big lug!" she scolded.

Raph shrugged and gestured to his adversary with his sai. "He started it."

Casey stopped his attack and pressed a hand to his chest dramatically. "Woah. Who is the _babe_?"

Flummoxed, April dropped her hands to her side and stared at the weirdo in the mask. Raph took advantage of the lull to shoot a leg out and knock him off his feet. "Dumbass," he muttered.

He was expecting it when Leo caught him by the elbow. No way he'd have let April follow Raph into an unknown situation. "Put 'em away," Leo sighed, coming into view.

Raph smirked and twirled his sai. "We was havin' a friendly discussion about 'is phone."

Casey Jones sized up the competition. "Three on one. Bad odds. You guys wanna surrender now?"

Leo looked at him narrowly. "We want the phone. Please."

"Hell no. 's my phone. An' youse shouldn'a been in the way when I was makin' my rounds. 'S yer own fault I got yer pictures."

Casey squared off, weapon out, obviously not intending to leave the area without fighting Raph and Leo together. Raph smirked and tucked his sai in his belt. Leo smiled grimly.

"So… ya _are_ gonna surrender?" Casey sounded a little surprised.

And April pounced.

Of course, Casey had dismissed her as harmless. Short, unarmed, skinny, lacking natural armor, she looked unassuming, when people bothered to notice her.

Her father and brothers would never have let her leave home if she were helpless.

She wasn't as strong as her brothers, but was as well-versed in hand-to-hand combat as they, and more. Their father dedicated the winters to training her in the particular art of _dirty fighting_. Raph watched with glee as she proceeded to fight _very _dirty against the weirdo in the hockey mask. She bit, kicked, and clawed, ripped his shirt, dug her teeth into his ear, raked her claws across his scalp, and struggled to get to the golf bag's phone pocket.

Casey jumped like a tick on a greased frying pan.

He bucked. He spun. He struggled, and got a face full of fingers for his trouble. The kid swore pretty creatively while trying (and failing) to dislodge the girl from his back.

Raph laughed out loud, doubling-over to see this blow-hard brought down by "a babe." Beside him, Leo rolled his eyes. "Kid," Leo said, "just give us the phone, okay?"

Casey ripped open the phone pocket and pulled the phone out, throwing it a distance from both himself and the turtles standing there. Leo moved to go fetch the phone, and April released her victim from her clutches.

Casey spun around and landed a solid punch to her face.

The girl toppled over. Raphael's blood ran icy.

"Geez, what th' fuck's _wrong_ wit' you freaks?" Casey asked, and then he stepped back from April as she looked up at him. "'S wrong wit' yer eyes?"

Raph saw blood in the corner of her mouth, saw her spit something into her hand, and then she shrieked, "_My fang!_"

"Oh shit." Casey apparently realized he'd actually hit April the same moment he realized Raph was completely done playing.

The kid did the smart thing and bolted. Raph was on his heels, sai out, ready to skewer the boy in the mask.

"_Come back here!_" he screamed, intending to beat the kid's face bloody. The kid's neck was within finger reach when Leonardo landed hard on Raphael's shell, knocking the wind out of his younger brother and pinning him to the ground.

The boy sped out of the woods, finding the lighted paths and human company, and Raphael couldn't go after him any further.

His scream of _DAMN!_ echoed through Central Park.

* * *

April paced and swore and looked at her lower left canine tooth in her hand and not in her face where it belonged. Leonardo was dragging Raph back behind him. She met him as he entered the clearing and held her tooth up in his face. "_He knocked my fang out!_" she yelled.

Leo shut his eyes for a moment and blew a sigh out his nose. "Did you get the phone?" he asked.

"No! I thought you did!" She clutched the tooth tightly in her fist, then shoved it in Raph's face. "Look at this! He hit my fang right out of my head!"

Raph shoved her hand away and stalked past her, too angry at the loss of his prey to be concerned with her miniature crisis.

Leo, meanwhile, searched the area where the boy had thrown the phone, only there was no phone. "Did you see where he tossed it?"

"No, I was too busy biting him!" She pressed her tongue into the hole where her tooth had been. Blood welled up, dripping down her lip. She spat a gob of blood out. "Can we put it back?" Her heart pounded. She needed that tooth! She only had three other canines and couldn't afford to lose any of them.

Leo seemed completely unconcerned about her plight. "I can't find the damn thing!"

"Maybe the kid picked it up when he was running," April said.

"Great." Leo rubbed his head. "C'mon. Raph, come on. We need to find Mike and Donnie and get home."

Raphael waved him off, pacing. Leo wasn't having it. He grabbed the tails of Raph's mask and gave a hard yank. Raph responded by turning on Leo and slamming a fist into his shoulder.

April wanted to kill them both.

"We need to get home!" She stamped her foot loudly for attention. "I have to find out if Splinter can put my fang back in!"

It was enough of a distraction to keep them from getting into a full-blown fight. "F'get it," Raph said. "I don't' think Father can fix a tooth."

Dejectedly, April looked down at the tooth in her hand. "He's going to kill me."

"No," Leo corrected testily, "he's going to kill _me_. I'm the one in charge."

With nothing to show for their encounter, the trio slipped into the shadows, making their way out of the park and back to the building where Donatello and Michelangelo waited.

Mike was pacing. Don didn't bother. He just held up his phone for Leo. The clock read 2:27 AM, April saw.

She felt a little sick. "That weirdo hit me. He knocked my fang out."

"Whoa." Mike bounded to her side, looking at the tooth in her hand. "Holy crap! Raph, you let some guy beat up on April?" He shot Raph a look of disgust, laying the blame entirely at his feet.

Raph bristled. Donnie shoved him out of the way and took April's chin in his hands, taking a good look at the hole where her canine had been.

He balled his fists, his face tight with barely-controlled fury. "Damn it, give me that!" He snatched it by the crown from her hand and lightly wiped it. "Open your mouth."

April did as instructed. Very gently, Donnie fit the tooth in the socket. "Bite down," he instructed. "Gently. Don't clench your teeth."

"Think you can fix it?" Leo asked.

"Maybe. If we get home immediately. It hasn't been out long, has it?"

"Maybe ten minutes," April said through her closed teeth.

"Okay. I _think _we can fix it. Keep it in your mouth until we get home." Donnie wiped his brow. "Father's going to kill us."

"I'm pretty sure he's gonna kill Leo," Mike said helpfully.

Leo gave Mike a long look.

Mike cleared his throat. "So," he said, turning to April. "Guess you get a ride home tonight." He squatted, making it easier for her to grab him around the shoulders and wrap her legs around his waist. For once, she wasn't feeling like arguing that she could walk by herself. The tooth felt loose in its socket, making her nervous to move too quickly.

Grateful for the assistance, April rested her forehead on Mike's left shoulder and closed her eyes, letting him carry her home.


	4. If Shame Had a Face

**CHAPTER 4 - If Shame Had a Face**

The New York City sewer system wasn't designed for easy passage, though it did have service tunnels and walkways for when maintenance was absolutely necessary. The children knew those tunnels and passages intimately. They'd grown up among them, mapping the city from beneath the streets, and learning about the outside from their own little underworld.

They were in no hurry to get home tonight. Leonardo found himself leading the group to their "front door." He walked slower than he usually would have, but still refused to lower his head, even though the instinct to do so was dragging him back as if by his bandana tails.

In the sky, from building to building, they could run and jump and fly across gaps without fear of falling. Here, in the dark, lit only by dim orange service lights at long intervals, they moved deliberately, watching every step. Only April, with her exceptional eyesight, could traverse the narrow corridors at high speed without misstepping, and right now she was clinging to Michelangelo's back.

Donatello walked beside the pair, checking the left side of the girl's jaw. "Don't wiggle that tooth," Leo heard him say. "Just keep it in place. Keep it wet."

"Hellofa bruise on her face," Raphael said. He wasn't in any hurry to pass Leonardo up, walking squarely behind his older brother.

"Does it hurt bad?" Mike asked.

"No," April said through her closed teeth. Then, "A little bit."

"Poor baby." Only Mike could say that without sounding patronizing or sarcastic. "Maybe Father'll let you have ice cream after Donnie fixes your tooth."

"Doubt it," April mumbled.

The front door was cleverly hidden behind a false wall that slid aside and back when Leo found the latch. That part he had no trouble with, but the door itself stood there, closed tight, and was the only thing keeping him from having to answer to his father for failing so badly this time.

Nobody pressed him to open it, either.

They all stood there, staring at the floor and shuffling their feet, waiting for him to make a move.

Time wasn't going to stop just because Leo wished it. He unlatched the door and led the others inside.

Splinter sat akimbo on the floor at the low table in their great room, a cup of hot tea steaming up in front of him. He said nothing as the children walked in; all of them but Leonardo refused to meet his eyes. Those dark brown eyes were calm and steady, as if he hadn't been sitting up worrying about them for a half-hour past their curfew.

Splinter's long fingers were folded together on the table. His back was straight, his breathing easy, and his large, pointed ear twitching ever so slightly at the children's movements. A human might fear him.

He was a rat.

His fur was striped with bald spots across his muzzle from old scars that had not healed properly. More scars ran along his neck to his shoulders, hidden by his kimono sleeves. One pointed ear twitched to catch sound; the other was a stub, sliced in half many years ago. Fur and clothing hid toned muscles that the children knew well from their lessons. He was calm, and quiet, and the younger children could not look at him.

Not knowing what else to say, Leo said, "We're home, Father," and removed his mask.

Splinter looked him over, eyes pausing on the bandage on Leo's shoulder, then silently looked to Michelangelo, April still on his back. Raph and Don untied her shoes, putting them up in their cubby, pointing them outward. They removed their own masks, shed their armor, and set everything on the bench beside the door.

Mike set her on her feet. April put her hand up immediately to the left side of her mouth, covering the growing bruise. She looked directly at his hands. "Hi, Splinter," she whispered through her clenched teeth.

Splinter raised his right eyebrow very slightly, but still said nothing. He took in the appearance of the others, Scooby bandaids and all.

The silence thickened. Leo took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. "April lost a tooth. Donatello thinks he can fix it."

Splinter stared unblinking at Don, who finally looked up. "Sir." Leo could barely hear his voice.

Their father nodded, then stood up, retrieving his cane from the floor beside him. He never raised his voice. "I will accompany you."

Don licked his lips. "Sir, this is probably going to take an hour or more."

"Yes," Splinter said. He looked from Leonardo to Michelangelo to Raphael. "I believe you three had best get to bed. Daylight is coming, and you will need rest for the work I have planned for you."

"Yes, Father," Leo said quietly.

Splinter gestured for Donatello to precede him. Donnie headed for the "garage," the makeshift storage area where Don and Raph kept their various tools, the Triumph, their spare medical equipment, and generally anything they didn't have room for in the main part of their home. Donnie collected a variety of useful items, everything from glasses repair kits to battery-operated dental equipment. He couldn't perform a root canal, which April might need, depending on how bad the tooth was broken, but he had plastine and a dental mold, he'd told Leo on the walk home. He could make a quick cast of her canine and the teeth on either side of it and make a temporary dental bridge to "splint" the tooth in place. If Donnie got to it fast enough, it should heal into place in about six weeks, give or take.

If not, April would be permanently short a fang, a prospect that made her bristle.

Splinter offered his arm to April, guiding her into the bathroom. That left Leo, Rap and Mike to their own devices.

Leo had a pretty good idea they weren't going to have Saturday to themselves to laze around after all. Typically a long night out meant sleeping in past noon and getting up to play video games or work on whatever projects the children had for themselves. That… was probably no longer an option.

"I think," Leonardo said, "we're going into lockdown early."

Raph kicked the floor and grumbled. "Kitchen?"

"Might as well. C'mon, Mike." Leo threw his arm around his youngest brother's shoulders and pulled him close.

The kid walked with his head down, clearly bummed that this was probably the last night they'd be topside until January; maybe as late as February. "Think he's mad?"

"Yes." No sense beating around the bush. "Get yourselves some hot tea and get to bed."

Raph rubbed his eyes and made a face. "Shit tastes like grass clippings." Despite his rumbling, he fetched two tea mugs and added loose tea leaves, not bothering with a strainer. There was hot water in the kettle on the stove. He poured hot water for both mugs and took his to the kitchen table.

Mike fetched the honey, adding a large dopple to his tea cup. "Is April's mouth gonna be okay?"

Leo ran the tap and filled a glass with cool water for himself. "I think so. Donnie sounded like he knew how to fix it. Anyway, it's worth a shot."

"I had fun tonight." Mike slumped into a chair and stirred his tea, taking a sip and making a face. "Gross."

"You're supposed to strain it."

"It don't matter," Raph said. "Stuff tastes nasty anyway." He took a long gulp of tea, unsweetened, and made a face at the bitter flavor. "You gon' tell Father about the fight?"

Leo sat between his younger brothers. "Which, the gang or that kid with the hockey mask?"

Raphael shrugged. "Both. Either."

Michelangelo said, "We're gonna be in big trouble if he finds out about the camera." He looked at Leo, worrying at his lower lip. "Can we go out and find it?"

"I don't think he'll let us go look for it." Leo brooded. "I think he might keep us in lockdown longer if he found out about that guy taking our pictures."

Mike moaned. "I don't wanna be stuck down here for a year, Leo!"

"I don't, either, Mike, but we don't have many options here." Get out, get the phone away from that creep. If the creep even had it. At least they could go back to the park and try to find it, if they could pinpoint where they were when that kid tossed it.

But that required getting away from Splinter before he found out what had happened.

If they could get the phone, they could explain it to their father. They'd be punished; probably they'd be in lockdown an additional month. It would still be better than being stuck here until next November.

Raph asked, "Think we'll have to move?"

Not a great option, either. They would have to find a new space with enough living room for the six of them, and space was at a premium underground. "We might, either way."

Leo thought for a moment, but nothing seemed like a good idea. "I guess… I guess we go try to find the phone. Whether we can or can't, once we look, we have to tell Father."

Raph snorted. "Ya shoulda let me pound dat kid."

"You would have taken it too far."

"He got our pi'ture, Leo! He _punched _yer sister, case ya didn't notice!" Raph gripped the mug tightly in his hands, but didn't throw it as Leo expected. "We're in trouble."

"One way or another, we're in trouble. I'm just trying to figure out how to minimize it." Leonardo shook his head. "Go to bed. I'm too tired. I can't think."

Raphael carried his mug to the sink. "Night," Mike said, and Raph gave him a light tap on the shoulder and a grunt, which was as close to "goodnight" as he was getting tonight. He didn't even bother to look at Leo.

Mike took his own mug to the sink, giving both of the empties a wash. "I shouldn't have said we should go for a beer run."

"I shouldn't have listened to you," Leo said, "so we're even." He stood up. "Get to bed. I'm going to check on April."

Mike lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "I did have a good time. Right up 'til all hell broke loose."

"I know. I did, too." Leo gave Mike's shoulder a squeeze and sent him off to his room, then headed to the bathroom to look in on the others.

April sat on the edge of the soaking tub, mouth open, while Donatello poked and prodded around the avulsed tooth. He had sterilized the area, then took an impression of her canine and the bicuspid and incisor it sat between with the dental mold.

Now Leo watched as Donnie filled the mold with plastine, and set the plastine across the three teeth, shining a small UV light on it to harden it into place.

April figited uncomfortably for the next twenty minutes. It wasn't an especially painful procedure, but her mouth still hurt from where she'd been punched, and they didn't have any sort of anesthesia to help. Splinter rested his hand on her shoulder and wrapped his tail gently around her waist. She petted it with her left hand, her right hand gripping the edge of the tub tightly for balance.

Donatello watched intently as the plastine dried in her mouth, forming a tight, sterile seal around the teeth and holding the loose canine in place, while being loose enough at the bottom to ensure the root and gum stayed wet. He was completely silent, absorbed in his work.

Leo leaned against the doorframe. He didn't feel right heading to bed while April and Donnie couldn't sleep. Splinter noticed him and gave a slight nod of approval that Leo remained.

Don sighed and turned off the UV light. "Okay. It'll feel weird as hell for a while, but it's strong enough you can chew with it."

She moved her jaw up and down, making a face. "How long do I have to wear this thing?" Her voice was a little lispy from the unnatural intrusion.

"Mmm. About six weeks." Don unplugged the light and started wrapping up the cord. "After that, I'll take it off and check it. If the tooth survives, it'll heal into the jawbone and you won't have any problems with it. If not, well." He looked apologetically at Splinter. "That's the best I can do with what I've got."

Splinter nodded. "Better to attempt to repair the damage. Better still to have avoided the situation altogether."

Don pursed his lips. "Yes, sir."

Splinter turned to Leonardo. "I'm leaving you responsible for ensuring everyone is up and in the dojo at noon. We are going to be training."

That officially shot down any Saturday plans any of them had. Of course, all the children expected it when they came home and saw him worrying in the great room, but as all children do, Leo had hoped that his father might be a little lenient this time. Apparently not. He nodded in response. "Yes, sir."

"Splinter?" April tugged gently on the rat's tail and stroked it.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She frowned and rubbed her temple lightly. "Is anything wrong with my eyes?"

Leo frowned, and Donnie stopped and looked at her as well. Donnie fetched a flashlight to make it easier to see her face and aimed slightly to the side of her eyes to avoid blinding her.

April's pupils responded to the light, constricting in a tight, vertical line, the tapetum lucidum behind her retinas reflecting brightly, making the green-gold of her irises gleam.

Seeing nothing unusual, Splinter ran his finger tips over her face, feeling for bruises or scrapes, but found nothing out of the ordinary. "No," he said, frowning. "Do your eyes bother you?"

"I was… no, sir." April shook her head emphatically.

Donnie shut off the light. "You look fine, Kitten. I'm heading in."

"Night," Leo said. April took Donnie's hand in hers and gave it a squeeze.

Splinter nodded at Don as he left, then at the last two left awake. "You two should sleep as well."

"I'm going to heat up some water and have a cup of tea," Leo said. "I don't think I can sleep without it." He looked down at April. "You want some, Kitten?"

"I think I'll have some milk," the girl said, and smiled, showing off all four of her sharp little fangs.


	5. Staring at the Ceiling in the Dark

**CHAPTER 5 - Staring At the Ceiling in the Dark**

Sleep did not come easily to any of the children. Leonardo could hear his siblings turning and tossing as the dawn passed and became morning. Sunlight didn't reach them here in the underground, but the stress of their Friday outing (and April's stomach not appreciating how much beer she had drunk) kept them from getting any real rest.

Leo tried to meditate to calm his mind, but worry crept into his thoughts, despite the fact that there was nothing he could do at the moment about the missing cell phone. He'd already decided that at least he was going to have to go out at the earliest possible moment and scour the park where the phone had been lost. The longer they waited, the less chance of finding the phone they had.

Even if he didn't find it, Leo thought he had to at least make the attempt. He would tell Splinter, one way or another, but he wasn't looking forward to that conversation.

Eventually eleven o'clock came, and he gave up pretending to sleep. The other four snored and turned over and generally made a ruckus, evidence that they hadn't gotten much more rest than Leo had. Well, Leo had worked out on very little sleep before, and he probably would again, so there was no point in putting off the inevitable.

He flipped on the overhead light, which illuminated each of the children's cubbies. "Rise and shine," he called out.

Nobody rose, and certainly none of them shone. He went from cubby to cubby, shoving shoulders, stealing blankets, and nudging his siblings with his feet until they were at least sitting up. There was the usual grumbling that came with morning, but eventually Leonardo got everyone awake.

Sleep was rubbed from their eyes. There was a lot of yawning and stretching. Futons were folded up and put out of the way. The boys shoved and pushed to get to the water closet first. April took her time brushing and pinning up her hair, wrapping up in a _sarashi_, and pulling a tank and sweat shorts on. Altogether, it took Leo thirty minutes to get everyone mobilized, which was an improvement over his usual time, but still felt like it took forever.

That gave them half an hour for breakfast. Herding cats might have been easier than getting everyone to the kitchen. Donatello stared hatefully at the empty coffee pot that they'd all forgotten to set up the night before and got busy brewing his wake-up juice. Leo put the kettle on for tea and muttered to Don, "You're a freaking addict." Don only inclined his head in agreement.

There was a lot of grumbling and mumbling, and a little bit of shoving, but everyone was too tired to escalate. Nobody wanted to cook. The consensus was toast, juice, tea, coffee, and cereal. April dug around in the fridge for milk and squeaked, "Ooo! Pizza!"

The four boys replied with a resounding, "No." At the tender age of twelve, April had insisted pizza was the perfect food and attempted to eat it, hot or cold, at every meal. Which was fine, except after four meals in a row, everyone else got sick of it. Even now she would insist on ordering pizza at least once a week, but there was only so much pizza a guy could tolerate before all he wanted was tacos. Leo chased her out of the refrigerator, tossing the three-day-old leftovers in the trash, and shoved the milk at her. She grumbled and poured the milk for her cereal and passed it around.

Leo poured hot water for tea. Don possessively poured a large mug of coffee and sipped it before it was cool enough. Raphael shoved his mug away, rejecting hot beverages, and munched on buttered toast, ignoring the cereal boxes and the milk. Mike sipped orange juice and waved off his mug. April filled her mug halfway with milk, then added three heaping spoonfuls of sugar, before filling it the rest of the way to the top with coffee.

Leo casually smacked the back of Raphael's hand and made him drop the toast. Raph rolled his eyes and swallowed what was in his mouth, but he stopped eating and waited, eyes half-closed and face lined with sleepiness.

Leo sat and made sure everyone was paying attention. He put his hands together, and the other kids did so as well, some with more reluctance than the others. "[_I humbly receive,_]" he said, speaking the words in Japanese.

The other kids mimicked him, "[_I humbly receive,_]" and everyone plowed into their food, except Raphael, who looked like he was dozing off. Leo gave him a very light kick. Raph opened his eyes to side-eye Leo, but got back to the business of eating his toast.

"My head hurts," April said. She had large bags under her eyes, and despite being pinned up, her red hair stuck out in frazzled tufts.

"'S called a hangover," Raphael said. He didn't look much better. Leo thought back and tried to remember how many beers the kid had drunk, but after drinking two Blondes himself, he'd stopped counting for everyone else. His own head and stomach weren't feeling fantastic, either.

Mike fidgeted with his spoon before standing and taking a peek down the hall toward the dojo. The door was closed. Taking a chance, he sat down and asked, very softly, "What're we gonna do about the you-know-what?"

Leo dropped his own voice. "We'll talk about it later. Eat."

Raphael looked at Leonardo, his eyes slightly narrowed, but didn't say anything. Leo wondered what was going on in the kid's head this time.

A soft pelt brushed back and forth against Leo's leg under the table. "Hey, Klunk."

There was a soft "pree-ow," followed by Klunk's appearance on top of the table. He was a muscular cat, with a white belly and paws and stripes of varying shades of orange along his back. He had the tabby "M" on his forehead, and two very large amber eyes.

"Off the table," Donatello told the cat. Klunk swished his tail and looked at Don like he was a fascinating insect, but he didn't get down.

April opened her mouth slightly. A tiny half-purr bubbled up from deep in her throat. Klunk responded by wandering over to her plate and staring at her. The two of them leaned toward each other, bumping noses. "Klunk's been hunting," April said.

"Oh, please don't let it be a rat," Mike said softly, shutting his eyes and wishing very hard.

April reached for the tom. He darted across the table and pushed his whole body against Michelangelo's arm, purring loudly but refusing to let April touch him. Mike stroked the cat's short fur, petted him under the chin, and scooted his chair back so Klunk could sit in his lap. The cat adored Mike, and would tolerate Don, Raph, or Leo petting him, but he avoided April at all costs.

She made a face. "See if I clean your litter box tonight," she said, and went back to focusing on her breakfast.

* * *

At noon, they children braced themselves and entered the dojo. Leo led them in, tension in his shoulders, but he kept his head up.

Splinter sat akimbo at the head of the room, watching them enter. His breathing was calm. He looked serene. He gestured to the floor, indicating that the children should sit around him.

In here, Splinter was Master, not father. They bowed, and they obeyed. Sitting, he met their eyes. Michelangelo looked away quickly when the Master looked at him. Donatello and April held his gaze only a moment before they looked away. Though Raphael did not look away first, his face reddened, and he balled his fists tightly.

Leonardo felt the weight of blame on his shoulders. He accepted that blame and calmly met the Master's eyes. He tried to convey his repentance in that silent moment before the Master looked away.

The Master spoke with quiet authority. "This world does not accept us. From the beginning of our lives, we have been caged and hunted and rejected. Even those who would be our allies would not understand. I do not fault you for seeking freedom. Our domain is the shadow. We must leave it reluctantly, to strike hard and fast, and to fade away.

"Yesterday, you endangered yourselves. Leonardo, Donatello."

The boys sat up very straight.

"I have relied upon you to help me care for your younger siblings. When I am not there, you must be responsible. I do not wish to burden you, but it must be. One day, I will be gone. You must be ready to take up my mantle. Michelangelo. April."

April squirmed and tried to look small. Mike pressed against Leo's side; Leo wrapped an arm around his shoulders for comfort.

"It is your responsibility to be obedient, to learn from your elders, and to assist them however is needed." A very slight smile touched the Master's lips. "Suggesting a… 'beer run'... does not conform with your duties."

Mike studied his hands. "We just wanted to have some fun."

"I understand, but the outside world is not ready to receive us. Uninhibited, you become a target for those still seeking us."

_Fire and broken glass. Huddling in a corner, under a table. The human with the syringe, dead in front of them, his throat torn out. Splinter kneeling, muzzle covered with blood._

Leo blinked and looked away, rejecting the memory.

"Raphael."

Raph looked grim. He balled his hands into fists and rested them on his knees. "It wasn't my idea."

"I know. Nor was it your idea to follow Michelangelo's suggestion," the Master said, and some of the tension left Raph's hands. "You are in a unique position. Your elder brothers rely on you for your strength and courage. Your younger siblings admire and imitate you. You must learn to balance your responsibilities to both; to know when to act, and when to reject an action."

Chastised, the children fidgeted. "I believe all our best interests would be served if we took leave of the outside world early this year."

Leo braced himself and spoke quickly. "Master?" The Master looked at him, one bushy eyebrow raised at the unexpected interruption, coming from him of all the children. "May we have three days before we go into lockdown?"

The Master stared at him. Leo felt like he was being stripped down to the molecules and examined under a microscope. He couldn't tell the Master about the boy with the cell phone, not until it was retrieved and safely destroyed, but they needed time to find either the boy or the phone. Three days wasn't long, but Leonardo figured if they couldn't find it in that timespan, then it was probably gone forever.

The Master looked to the other children, all of whom looked hopeful, though none were volunteering information.

He had suspicions, but chose not to voice them. Instead, he nodded very slowly. "Yes. You may have three days to explore the city. But as you are being punished for endangering yourselves, and to minimize the chance of you doing so again, you are permitted to leave only between sunset and midnight. Otherwise, you will remain home."

The children exchanged glances, and Raph gave Leo his best _now look what you got us into_ glare, but they all nodded their agreement.

The Master stood. "Now that we have disposed of the topic, it is time for your lessons."


	6. The Kids Are Playing Up Downstairs

Author's Note: Nothing throws off your writing schedule like being sick. Between me and my cat, we both have ear infections (for different reasons - hers requires surgery, while mine just requires stomach-churning antibiotics).

Coming right after the Holidays like this, I'm behind my chapter-a-week writing plan. Blah. Well, I'm off work with a doctor's note tomorrow, so hopefully I can get caught up.

This was originally a longer chapter that took the kids out of the house and back on the streets of New York, but I thought it was getting too long, and my ears were ringing too loudly to make it work, so I'm splitting it in half. I guess this story is more "slice of life" than I anticipated.

Comments and constructive criticism is always appreciated! If you see anything really wrong, let me know. I'm always open to advice given with love and support. :D

* * *

The next three hours went by quickly. The Master kept his children busy sparring. He rotated the pairings. He had them fight two-on-one, three-on-two. The final exercise was more of a game to the children by now - the boys in a circle, and April in the middle.

He put a variety of restrictions on the boys; Leonardo was unarmed, Raphael couldn't leave his quadrant, Donatello using a jō instead of his usual bō staff, Michelangelo wielding tonfa instead of his usual nunchaku. April had no restrictions, save that she always fought unarmed. She was permitted to use any and all methods to get past her brothers, even moves the Master would usually consider "illegal" in a practice round. The game was simple: the boys had to pin April before she could get outside the circle. April had to get outside the circle without being pinned.

The Master set the timer. Twenty minutes later, sweating and strained, they were at a stalemate. She was unpinned, but she was still in the center of the circle. The timer went off, and everyone stopped moving.

April flopped in the center of the ring, dramatically throwing her hand over her face. "Thank God, it's over!" she said loudly.

"Did I say that?" the Master asked. He smiled at her as she jumped back to her feet and stood at attention. The boys had been sagging; they stood up straight as soon as he spoke.

A three-hour workout, coupled with their restrictions on leaving home, was plenty of punishment in his estimation, though from the worried looks on the boys' faces, they all seemed to think he was planning something else for them. Well, the Master might, but their father was quite satisfied, and he was the one who dismissed them with a smile. "Go find something productive to do," he said, waving them off.

They all brightened. Raphael yelled, "Dibs on the shower!" and raced for the door, Michelangelo and April bolting after him, both yelling that they'd already called dibs. Chaos followed them out the door. "No hitting!" Splinter called after them, though from the grunts and yelling they probably hadn't heard him.

Donatello stretched out his left leg and studied a bruise forming there. "Are you alright?" Splinter asked. It didn't look too bad to his eye. Don nodded and helped Leonardo put away practice weapons and mats.

Splinter gave them a hand, and the three of them put the dojo back into good order very quickly. "Have you two any plans for the rest of the day?" he asked them lightly. Whatever Leonardo had planned for the evening, none of them felt comfortable enough to talk to him about it yet. Eventually Leonardo would talk, if not Michelangelo. Until then, Splinter would keep reminding them that he was there for them, but he'd give them some privacy.

It was a feature of living in such cramped quarters that privacy was at a premium. Splinter did whatever he could to try to give them space and let them have their own private thoughts and feelings, from dividing up the "bedroom" into five small cubbies with screens, to sending them out without him nightly during the spring and summer. Even if he couldn't give them the kind of house he wanted to - something large, with a yard and individual rooms - Splinter would give them as much as he could.

Leonardo didn't look at him just yet, probably trying to decide what was safe to reveal and what he should keep mum about, but Donatello answered, "I think I'm going to check my email." He had that far-away, distracted look that cropped up whenever he started talking about _work_. "Jerry said something about their invoices not printing comments anymore, and a couple of their customers were complaining about it. I'm being it's user error, but if I hear it's still a problem, I'll check it out. Oh, I have to develop April's film, too, before she starts bitc- um, complaining."

Splinter let that one slide.

Leo added, "I should go ahead and start dinner." His eyes narrowed slightly; Splinter assumed he was rapidly planning out the menu and setting his internal clock to see how quickly he could have the table set. Donatello inclined his head in agreement, still lost in the arcane workings of online tech support.

He decided to give his son a break. "That's not necessary. I'll take care of it. You two go clean up… if the little ones haven't destroyed the bathing room."

Both boys brightened and thanked him hurriedly, running to get in line. Splinter wiped his hands on a towel and tossed it in the corner for washing. The dojo looked good, and not just because the boys were efficient at putting things away. It was probably the most solid room in their little 'lair.' The walls had once been blinding white, but Splinter had stripped the paint down to the concrete, and dimmed some of the lights. There were indentations in the walls that indicated where counters and sinks had been, long gone now, and the white tile flooring had been chipped up. That was many years ago. It looked like it had never been anything but a dojo, and Splinter was happy to keep it that way.

"_Father!_" Donatello bellowed from inside, and Splinter put aside his thoughts about the past to focus on the present. He smiled to himself and thought, _Kids_, then schooled his face into an appropriately grave countenance.

The hall in front of the bathing room door was blocked. The three little ones were on the floor, a mass of wrestling figures biting, grabbing, and choking, with no way for their elder brothers to get past them without rising getting dragged into the melee. Donatello glared at the pile of children, exasperated, but Leonardo looked outright delighted.

"Guys," Donatello pleaded, "just, like, give me three minutes to clean up, okay? I've got to clock on!"

"_I called it first!_" Michelangelo yelled, and dug his teeth into Raphael's wrist.

The older boy grunted and kicked, trying to free his arm and buck April off his back simultaneously. "_I called it first, idiot! Leggo m'leg! _OW!"

"_I never get to go first!_" April whined. "_Both of you are bullies!_"

Seeing as it was business as usual, Splinter patted Donatello and Leonardo on the shoulders, said, "Good luck," and headed off to make dinner. They would sort themselves out.

Since sunset would be around seven that night, and the children seemed bent on getting out the moment it got dark, Splinter planned for them to eat at five, and made something that would keep so they would have leftovers when they got home at midnight.

* * *

With dinner prepped and an hour to kill, Splinter headed into the workshop.

It was a large room adjacent to their garage/warehouse/storage unit, originally designed with volatile chemical reactions in mind. It was about as big as the dojo, with enough counter space for small projects, and enough open floor space for larger occupations. Raphael and Donatello's Triumph was little more than screws, wires, and broken frame spread out across their section of the floor.

He walked past and settled in at his own work station. Scraps of wood and twists of metal cluttered the edges of the desk. Large blocks of wood stood to one side, sorted by size and hardness. On the other side, hand carving tools lay where Splinter had left them - knives, chisels, and gouges, organized by frequency of use. In the center of the desk, disassembled arms, legs, joints and sleeves, torsos and heads say waiting to be connected together in the forms of three wooden ball joint dolls.

Splinter spent hours crafting each piece by hand, sanding them completely smooth and sealing them with oil, shaping each limb perfectly. Woodwork like this had been keeping his family fed for over ten years. In his younger days, Splinter had been amazed at how easily one could hide behind a computer monitor, creating and selling items without anyone knowing who - or what - he was.

Oh, he never felt entirely safe earning a living this way. On his own, he had always felt eyes hovering near, hunting for him and his family, making him extremely cautious about what commissions he actually took, but he had needed to do something to keep his children fed and warm.

When Donatello was twelve, his innate understanding of all things electronic blossomed, and little by little, the boy began building defenses against hunters, until he was confident that they could all safely ply whatever trade they chose, so long as no one saw them.

They were by no means rich, but their larder no longer ran empty, and everyone could afford small entertainments.

Leonardo had taken after his father, learning woodcraft and building items from book shelves to toy boats. He had a nice little client list with a few regulars, though the paid work wasn't exactly regular.

Donatello understood computers, enough that he could build them himself, given the right tools and parts. He didn't find I.T. work especially fulfilling, but it "paid the bills," as it were, and it gave him the free time to devote to his own interests.

Raphael liked mechanical things. He liked restoring vintage tools and making ancient motors run. His and Donatello's tastes ran close enough together that they had both saved their earnings and purchased the heap of scrap metal they claimed was a motorcycle. Splinter didn't interfere, but secretly, he was a little - just a little - excited to see if they could actually restore the thing.

Like his namesake, Michelangelo was an artist, though he actually preferred painting over sculpture. He was _far_ too young to turn it into a business, but their home boasted lovely and bizarre landscapes with impossible architecture and imaginary planets in the skies. He talked about setting up his own shop online and selling his paintings.

Later, though, Splinter thought. He was much too young to think about it now.

April had her photography. She wanted to take pictures of the world the way she saw it and share that vision with others. Of course, Splinter knew she was too young to consider how she wanted to make a living, but he could see her becoming quite the accomplished photographer some day.

Not now, of course. But some day. When she was much older.

He quickly assembled the three dolls, two made-to-order that he wrapped up neatly for shipment. The third he painted with long, slender brushes, delicately detailing the narrow chin, round cheeks, button nose, and bright green eyes with slit pupils.

While the paint dried, Splinter selected strands of doll hair from his tool kit, strawberry red for the base color, with highlights that were nearly blond and deep auburn lowlights. He attached the threads in careful layers to a measured plastic cap, until the doll's wig was complete, and, its face now dry, he slipped it on.

It was cute. Better than it needed to be. Probably better than the two he was selling, if he were being honest.

From the sound of it, the children had migrated to their own "rooms." He brought the doll out with him to the empty great room and set it beside April's seat atop the chabudai. Satisfied, and pointedly _not_ calling attention to the gift, Splinter started seeing the dinner table.


	7. Could You Be the Devil? Could You Be

CHAPTER 7 - Could You Be the Devil? Could You Be an Angel?

Author's Note: I think that posting a chapter a week is a little but unreasonable, because it doesn't give me enough time to edit well. I think what I'll do is try to get a chapter written a week, but then post after I've polished it a little bit. Hopefully y'all aren't too bored between chapters!

I've tweaked this a couple of times. I hope it reads cleanly. I had a lot of fun with this one and hope everyone else enjoys it as well. As always, please feel free to comment, and definitely let me know if there are any errors or changes I need to make, or if you see any problems.

* * *

Vernon Fenwick had a box of bagels and cream cheese in his hands when he tried to let himself into the office of _The Undefined Times_, and the key decided that it didn't need to work. He had the box tucked under his left arm, his right hand struggling with the key, back and forth repeatedly, until the damn thing finally caught and turned.

He gave the door a little harder shove than it strictly warranted and set himself up at his desk. Given that it was a Saturday morning, he pretty much had the place to himself. The weekends usually consisted of Vern taking the articles covered over the course of the week and laying them out, adding in any last-minute advertisements, and getting the whole mess printed up.

On Sunday, Burne Thompson, the news editor, would send out the _Undefined_ papers for weekly consumption, mostly to colleges, coffee shops, grocery stores, anywhere a friendly tabloid would be a welcome distraction, and _Undefined_ had the added bonus of boasting the largest crossword puzzle since _Weekly World News_ went under. Monday through Thursday, the blog editor Bernadette Thompson, the Missus to Burne's Mister (and the better editor of the two, if Vern were any judge), would see to it that the online publication ran smoothly and was up-to-date. Friday, a new blog post would come out, and selected stories from readers would be published.

Vern rather liked the job. A Tuesday through Saturday work week meant he had time to run his own errands on Monday, and working alone on the weekend meant he could listen to his podcasts without annoying anybody. He settled down and got to work on the layout.

At around 10:30 AM, Irma Langinstein burst into the office, squealing at the top of her lungs, "_I got it! Vernon, I got it!_" Her mouse-brown hair flew all over the place, hardly constrained by her ponytail holder, and her glasses were askew on her face, but she hardly seemed to notice. She was still wearing yesterday's clothes - a cute Sanrio shirt bearing My Melody and a pair of jeans bearing Cheeto stains - and swung her purse around violently.

Vernon paused with his bagel halfway to his mouth. "Wha?" Irma was excitable at the best of times, but usually she didn't barge in spewing nonsense.

The woman danced, literally _danced_, across the crappy linoleum floor, doing some weird kind of pirouette or plie or whatever it was called, spun around, and flopped into the desk chair beside him. She raised her purse triumphantly. "I got it! I saw the guys who broke into TCRI, and - I shit you not - they were _aliens!_"

Vern leaned forward. He narrowed his eyes, lowered his eyebrows, and, in his most serious voice, asked, "Do you want half of this bagel?"

Irma glared at him, muttered, "yes, please," and snatched the offered baked good from his hand.

"Awright," Vern said, "let's start over. Who, what, when, where, why, and how?" He settled back in his seat and gave her his undivided attention. If nothing else, this promised to be entertaining.

"Okay!" Both of Irma's legs bounced with excitement or nervousness, he wasn't quite sure which. She took a deep breath (legs still bouncing) and tried to relay it in order. "Last night I went to TCRI to see if I could get some good shots of the grounds to go with the article, right?"

"On a Friday night?"

Irma blushed. Her ears turned red. "Look, I don't ride you when you skip Mass, you don't ride me for how I spent my Shabbat, deal?"

He shrugged good-naturedly and folded his hands in his lap. "Fair enough. Continue."

"So I'm there and I see this guy who looks like Freddy Kruger in a hockey mask-"

"Jason Voorhees."

"Whoever. Kind of big and well-built, really muscley, right? And I'm like, 'ah-ha! This must be the vigilante who broke in last week!' So I followed him, which was really damn _hard_ 'cause the guy was doing some really bizarre parkour thing where he'd be on the ground and then he'd, like, climb up the side of the damn wall, just pulled himself right on up, and run across the building to the next building, like in that French movie, what's the name of it?"

"Irrelevant," Vern said, reeling her in before she could completely get off topic. "Continue."

"Right. Right! Well, we get to Central Park, and he starts walking along the edge of the park, kind of keeping out of sight and kind of not, and by now I have to pee really bad, but I don't want to lose him, so I found a good piss-bush and do my business, and these two dudes I didn't see were right there, and they jumped me with my pants half-down!"

"_Gezuz_, Irma!" Vern sat up straight and looked her over, fully awake now. "Bury the damn lead, why don't you! Are you okay?"

"Yea-yea-yeah, I'm fine." She waved his concern off with a dismissive gesture. "I threw my purse one way and I started running the other, and they went for the purse, that was fine, but then out comes Freddy with his -"

"Jason."

"- Jason, yeah, Jason comes out with, get this, a _hockey stick_, and starts wailing on them and gets me back my purse. So I grabbed my purse and found a hidey-hole in the bushes and started filming because yes, of course I'm going to film this."

She fumbled her purse open and started yanking out random objects: used tissues, a tube of lipstick, three lottery tickets, a bottle of hand sanitizer, a screwdriver. Finally, she produced her Gopro. "Bingo! It's all on here!" She waved the small camera in Vern's face.

"So," she continued, "I'm filming Jason and Jason's about to beat the crap out of the two of them, and _the alien came out of nowhere and stopped him!_"

She dropped the Gopro on the table beside her purse and its expelled contents and started pacing wildly around the room. "I mean he materialized out of nowhere! One second there's just Jason and the Bad Seeds and the next thing there's a giant green monster standing there!"

Vernon had by now finished his half of the bagel and wondered if she was ever going to actually eat her half. "I thought we did Greys now. What are these, then? Reptilians?"

She stopped pacing and gave him a disgusted look. "There are no such things as Greys or Reptilians. And while we're at it, there are no Nordics, either."

"You said giant green monster," Vern pointed out. "That sounds like Reptilians. And they came out of nowhere. Reptilians are supposed to be able to move around undetected."

She stared at him as if his brain has suddenly started seeping out his ears. "Okay." She sat back down and talked to him slowly, like one would talk to a particularly idiotic child. "Let's pretend for two seconds that David Icke wasn't a complete wack job. Where's the evidence? Mind control? All esper tests that have provided better-than-statistically-random outcomes still show that ESP, remote viewing, and the like are all highly limited and cannot override a human's consciousness."

"That's human on human, though," Vern said, leaning back and enjoying egging Irma on. She bristled at the topic.

She was bristling now. "The theory of Uniformitarianism states that what we can observe from our own experience can be inferred to be the same or similar to objects and events that aren't observable. These critters are supposed to be able to cross-breed with humans, which is only possible if two creatures are close to each other biologically. Hares and rabbits can't cross-breed. They aren't the same species, and they're not close enough genetically to produce even sterile offspring.

"Science says that means the Reptilians either have to be human or be very close to us genetically, meaning they should be limited in the same ways we are, or else we should have the same kinds of abilities as them. We don't shape-shift. And they were supposed to have been here on Earth before us. There's absolutely no archeological evidence for their existence. They're made up, Vern."

Vern shook his head slightly, grinning at her. "For a lady who believes in aliens, you're one skeptical bitch."

She gave a good-natured shrug. "Conspiracy theories always drag people away from genuine science and make sincere people who believe in the paranormal look _mshega_. We end up getting lobbed together with the crackpots. Besides, my mom always said, 'Keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out!'"

"So you don't believe in Reptilians, but you saw a giant green alien duke it out with Jason Voorhees."

She shrugged. "They were fighting, and another one came out, and a human girl showed up, and then everybody started fighting everybody else. Well, I got the whole thing on video! _And_…" She dug through her purse and withdrew a cell phone. "The man in the hockey mask threw this, just about right at me, and I thought for sure I was dead, but then something happened and the two aliens took off after the guy, and the girl wasn't watching me, so, yeah, I snatched it!"

She looked at the phone, then looked at Vernon. "Um…"

Vern raised a brow at her. "You can't turn on a phone?"

"Well…"

"Didn't you drive here?"

The poor woman looked so guilty. "Look, it was an exceptional circumstance. Just look at the phone!"

Vern chuckled and took the phone from her, turning it on and flipping through it. He found the contacts, the phone information, scrolled through texts, but didn't see anything interesting. Not even an exchange of nudes. "What am I looking for?"

"Look at the photos."

Vern looked, flipping through them and seeing a number of pictures of crimes in progress, typically followed up with pictures of beaten human beings in piles on the ground. "The guy plays rough, doesn't he? Ut oh…" He stopped and examined a group of pictures of…

Of _something_.

The final two pictures were clear enough to see the four beings standing on what looked like a balcony of some type. They weren't looking at the camera man. The images were zoomed in enough to make out some details.

The figures were tall, about human height. No noses that he could see. No eyes. Colored bands around their faces. Multiple layers of different types of armor. "Swords?" He set the phone down and picked up the Gopro, running back the video until solid images of two of the creatures appeared. One had short swords it used against the man. The other had long swords strapped to its back. "They're using swords?"

"Why not?" Irma asked. "Who's to say what's appropriate in an alien culture?"

"Yeah, but… aren't they supposed to have ray guns or something?"

Irma rolled her eyes. "They're not space invaders from Mars, Vernon. They're alien. They come from a different plane of existence. Who knows what's modern and what's archaic among other people? We don't even have equal levels of technology all over planet Earth. Why should they be any different?"

"They're from parallel universes?"

"Simultaneous universes." Irma reached across his desk and snatched the tape dispenser. She tore off two strips of tape, one piece taped to her thumb, one to her index finger. "Parallel." She held her fingers apart, showing the two pieces of tape parallel to each other.

Then she removed the tape, showed him the two sticky sides, and joined them, sticky sides together. "Simultaneous. Where we are, they are. We occupy the same 'space' but at different levels. Under normal circumstances, they can't interact with us and we can't interact with them. We normally can't even see each other."

Vern watched the fight twice more, seeing something familiar in the way the creature with the red mask moved, but he couldn't put his finger on it. "How do you know they weren't brought to our time from the past, or something?"

"The arrow of time only goes one direction: forward. If we move forward, they do, too. Same space, remember?"

"So." He looked at Irma, impressed. "You think TCRI pulled it off?"

She bobbed her head rapidly. "I'm pretty positive they pulled something over they didn't mean to. And it got loose in the city."

Vernon sighed, but it wasn't unkind. "Well, this is it. Our first 'Space Alien Weds Two-Headed Elvis Clone' article."

Irma scoffed. "It's not like that at all. We'll report on the events at TCRI, we'll post the pictures, we'll explain the science behind it, and we'll leave it up to the readers to decide what they do or don't believe. We don't print blatant lies, Vern. And we don't print wild speculation."

"We'll sell more papers if we do the Elvis-Alien thing."

"It's not about selling more papers. It's about informing the public about potential breakthroughs and dangers in their own city. And I'm going back out there tonight to try and get more pictures and videos. Tomorrow I'll go to TCRI and see what I can get them to tell me, and what I can infer from what they _don't_ say, and by next Friday, I'll have you one heck of a story!"

Vern couldn't help but admire her _chutzpah_. "Okay. It's bound to be more interesting than who the Prince of Wales is banging this week."

"So!" Behind her glasses, her eyes slipped to the side. "You know how I drove here, even though I'm not supposed to drive on Shabbat?"

Vern raised a brow at her. "You want me to drive you home." It wasn't a question.

She gave him a charming little smile. "Yes, please."

"...and I'm willing to bet you want me to turn on the lights for you when you walk inside."

"Did I ever tell you that you're my very best friend?"

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, and grabbed his keys to lock up behind them. "Just remember me on Christmas."

"If you'll remember me on Chanukah," Irma grinned, and followed him out.


	8. Let's Sink Another Drink

Author's Note:

This chapter is dedicated to my beloved cat. On February 22, 2020, my beloved cat Ginger was put to sleep. She had cancer in her left ear. It was a pretty awful thing, but I'd been starting to expect it, and haven't been able to focus much on writing since she got sick.

I'm going to re-post chapters 1-7 sometime this weekend and hopefully have Chapter 9 done as well, so I can post it up.

Sorry I've been slow posting. That happens when Real Life likes to butt its head into your business. I hope that y'all enjoy this chapter. I feel like I'm starting to get somewhere writing this story!

* * *

**CHAPTER 8 - Let's Sink Another Drink**

"_Do it, do it, do it!_" April said loudly.

"You know you want to!" Michaelangelo added.

Both of them began chanting, _do IT, do IT, do IT_, and Leonardo considered abandoning them both in the woods, except the only woods nearby were in Central Park, and they both could find their way home again easily, even without breadcrumbs. Curses.

Then Raphael said, "Leave em alone. He can't do it." He sat back on his heels and studied his fingernails with fake indifference.

"I _can_. I just don't think it's appropriate at the dinner table."

Raph sighed dramatically and side-eyed Mike and April. "That's his way of sayin' he can't do it. So he don't look bad in front of you two."

"Awww," April whined, feigning disappointment. Mike folded his arms in a pout. "Man," he sighed.

"Ignore them," Don said, "They're trying to get under your skin."

"They're doing a good job of it," Leo said dryly. "You know I can do it, Raph, you've seen me."

Raph shrugged. "I don't' 'member anythin' like that." He gave Leo a disapproving look. "Could be I just forgot. Could be ya never could do it and yer tryin' ta look good. I can't say either way."

"Come on, Leo! Do it!" Mike bounced in his seat, looking wide-eyed and pleading, with obvious hero-worship in his big blue eyes.

Leo fidgeted where he sat kneeling at their low dinner table. He kept glancing back at the kitchen, where their father was _just_ out of sight, pulling dinner out of the oven. "Guys…"

"_Pleeeeze_!" Mike begged, hands folded together, eyes huge and watery with unshed tears. "Because you love me?"

"Me too, me too!" April added.

"...you know…" Don couldn't quite hide a grin. "You haven't done it in a couple of years. Did you actually pull it off? I can't remember…"

"You bastard," Leo muttered. Don just shrugged.

Raph leaned against Leo, shoving him with his right shoulder. "For th' little dudes. C'mon. Just once."

Leo stared at Raph, then Don, and then the two little ones bouncing like a pair of rabbits. He blew a sigh out his nose. "Father's going to kill me."

April and Mike both cheered. Beside her, April sat a little family of wooden ball-jointed dolls (including the new red-headed doll, now dressed in a gingham blouse and skirt) on the table top and faced them all in Leo's direction. They were just toys, and Leo knew it, but he felt extremely embarrassed by the additional audience, and then embarrassed that he felt embarrassed.

Choosing to ignore April and her "friends," Leonardo jumped to his feet and made a mad dash into the dojo, snatched his katana from where they rested on the sword rack, and returned to find the ten-inch apple pie had migrated from the sideboard where it had been cooling to the space in front of his seat.

"You guys are really going to make me do this?"

Mike did a puppy whimper and batted his lashes at Leo. April outright purred. She made her mini-self doll nod.

"I feel like an idiot," Leo said.

Raph took the pie out of the tin.

Leo gripped his swords.

Raph tossed the pie up as high as he could from a kneeling position.

Now, Leo was fully aware that he was not going to pull off the miraculous, and when it landed, the pie was in eight uneven, slightly off slices, and there were about two inches between each piece. It didn't quite land in a full circle. The five-o'clock slice was askew, facing slightly toward one-o'clock instead of directly inside.

That didn't stop the two little kids from completely losing their shit.

"_Oh my God! Oh my God, he did it! Mikey, he did it!_"

"That's frickin' _amazing!_ Did you see that?!"

"I saw it, I saw it!"

Raph grinned and clapped slowly, not willing to admit he was still impressed by the trick, but at least willing to give his brother his due. Don just shook his head and smiled.

Mike stood up and, in his best Sham-Wow voice, announced, "_Introducing the Leonardo-5000! It slices, it dices, and yes, makes french fries in three different sizes!_"

Then Splinter cleared his throat, and Leo felt his face growing hot with blush.

Mike sat down with a thump. Everyone else stifled laughter and looked politely at the table top. Or the floor. Or their hands.

Their father carried a pair of plates, one in each hand, to the sideboard. "You know, you two _could_ help me set the table," he said pointedly to the youngest pair. "Leonardo fixed breakfast, and Raphael helped yesterday." He leaned against the sideboard and smiled down at April, then Mike. "I believe it is your turn."

"Oh, we're not allowed to set the table," Mike said quite primly, wearing his best "how can I help you, lady?" smile. "It's against our religion."

April shrugged and nodded.

Splinter's eyebrow went up. "Which is currently…?"

"Bene Gesserit."

"Jedi."

"We were Jedi last week," Mike corrected.

April looked bewildered. "I thought only women were Bene Gesserits?"

"Up," Splinter said, and gestured with his hand for the little ones to follow him. Leo saw him duck his head to hide a smile.

Klunk brushed against Mike's legs in passing. The cat followed its master into the kitchen, meowing pitifully despite the full food dish and a fresh catnip mouse to play with. Mike called from the kitchen, "Leo! Can you get your magazines off Klunk's tree? He can't get to his tree house."

Long were the nights when Raphael, Donatello, and Leonardo sat up debating whether or not their baby brother could actually understand Klunk - Leonardo was for, Raphael against, and Donatello, always scientifically minded, flip flopped depending on his mood and how much beer he had left. That question, along with whether Elvis was still alive as of The Year of Our Lord 2072, if Shakespeare actually wrote his own plays, and whether the infamous Tommy Wiseau was Russian, Greek, or Slavik, had once kept the three of them up from sunset to sunrise, with all of them completely plastered by morning, and had brought Splinter's wrath down on the trio. _After_ they were sober.

Leo gave his swords a quick clean at the table, planning to do a more thorough job before going out tonight. He took the time to return them to the weapons' rack, then paused and fetched the offending magazines off the cat tree. Mixed-martial-arts mags; he looked around for someplace out of the way to dump them but gave up, throwing them in the recycle pile. If there were any articles he missed, he could just as easily find them online. Easier, probably, since at least the internet had a keyword search.

Klunk watched Leo from the kitchen doorway with the same large eyes he gave his catnip mouse. The cat meowed and returned to threading himself between his master's legs. "Klunk says 'thank you!'"

Well, really, Leo was a turtle pushing six feet tall. Did he really need extraordinary evidence that Mike could speak cat?

* * *

The night air was crisp and clear, and Michelangelo loved every minute of the run. Sure, they were leaving the lair on "business," but it wasn't _so_ pressing that they couldn't make the trip to the park a little more fun with a game of tag, Hamato Family style.

Mike had dubbed Raphael "it" with a smack to the back of the head and a leap up the side of a building. Raph gave chase and the rest of the kids took off after the pair, intent on catching up.

Rather than heading immediately toward Central Park, Leonardo had ordered the family to take a good, long city run, partly to stretch their legs and partly to kill some time. He had said something about not wanting to get there too early, but whatever. Mike went where the big dogs told him to go. If Leo said run, he was running. Having Raph on his ass didn't hinder him any, either.

Mike leaped over alleyways and crossed planks spanning wide gaps between buildings, and he was still currently in the lead. When his tail was on fire, Mikey could be a fast little bugger. Raphael was a lit bomb with a short fuse this evening. Not angry at the moment - dinner had been quiet and their plans went off uninterrupted - but the changing seasons usually signaled a funk, and when he was in a funk, everything irritated Raph all the more.

Mikey heard his cell phone beep the hour at 9 PM. He had _just_ made it to the building antenna he'd declared Base and was about to smack it when Raph launched himself at his little brother and tackled Mike down, sliding them both away from Base. "_Gotcha!_" the bigger turtle said.

Mike peeled himself from the tar roof and winced. "Yup, I'm sufficiently gotted, alright." No major damage, but he felt like he had a bad rug burn on his right elbow. "Guess I'm it next!"

"On the way back," Leo said, not bothering to tag himself in, since Raph had already gotten his victim. "I think we're good to start searching."

April landed with a _thunk_ on the roof and poked Leonardo in the side. "But all of them were _women_," she complained, still stuck on the details of her current "religious beliefs."

Mike interrupted - _he_ had read the novels, or at least the first one. _She_ only watched the movies. "Babe, Paul Atreides was a male Bene Gesserit! He was their messiah guy!"

If anything, she looked even more perplexed. "But if he's the messiah guy, he's not really a Bene Gesserit, is he? I mean, a god doesn't really practice the religion, right? He's just the, um… the main guy of it."

Leo interrupted before Mike and April could get into a debate about a deity's function within a religious context. "The Kwisatz Haderach was _created _by the Bene Gesserit, so he wasn't a god, just a dude; he didn't _actually _practice the religion; only _women _could use Spice to unlock genetic memory, and they were trying to _manufacture _a man to see what they couldn't see; Paul wasn't _actually _a Mother Superior, you're _not _Bene Gesserit, you _have to_ go back to being a Jedi, can we _please_ cap this topic?" Then he inhaled.

Mike mentally spit in his hands and rubbed them together. "Donnie!" he yelled as the second-eldest landed beside the group, "Kwisatz Haderach - Bene Gesserit or not?" Having unleashed his secret weapon - a brother who helped edit the Dune Trivia wiki - Mike took a step back and folded his arms, wearing the biggest shit-eating grin he could. Leonardo might have read the entire series several times over, but he didn't write his own analysis essays like Donnie did!

"_NO!_" Raph stepped in the center of the group, pushing everyone back away from each other. "Nobody says another word that ain't part of a goddamn real fucking language! Got me?! Dat book gave me a fucking migraine, the movies were fucking _weird_, nobody understands _nothin'_ about what da hell was going on - you got space gods an' friggin' sand worms and shit - if one more person says somethin' that ain't Japanese or English, I'm gonna rearrange his face! _Capisce?_"

Mike found the way Raph's eyes twitched as he ranted to be quite distracting. "Dude… _capisce_ is Italian, man."

Raph leveled a stare at him that had Mike slinking away to hide behind Leonardo.

Don looked quite amused at the interplay. He glanced at April. "Maybe you two should be Rastafarian this week?"

She shook her head. "Splinter won't let Mikey braid his hair."

"Leo," Raphael said. "Stab me."

"Oh _hells_ naw!" Leo barked a laugh. "If I have to put up with this, you have to, too!" He cleared his throat and pulled Mike from behind him, getting them in a circle. "Okay. Plan is -"

Don bent slightly and whispered, just loud enough to overhear, into Mike's ear slit. "Kwisatz Haderach was totally a Bene Ges-" but that was as far as he got before Raph tackled him.

"Okay," Leonardo said fifteen minutes later, when the fighting had stopped, everyone had settled down, and hurt feelings were patched. "The plan is, we split up, start searching the area Donnie marked on our maps, and meet up here in two hours."

"Why only two hours?" Mike winced and stuck another piece of medical tape to his cheek, holding the bandage in place. "We have three days, and Father says we can stay out until midnight."

Leo explained, very slowly and using short words, since Mike hadn't paid attention the first two times Leo went over it. "Father doesn't know we're walking around in Central Park. It's cultivated more than wild. There are too many paths and open areas where we don't have the advantage of shadows to hide in. Right now is when Donnie calculated there would be the fewest people and it would be darkest, so right now it's safest for us to look. Okay, Mikey?"

"Wouldn't, like, 2 AM be darkest and have less-est people around?"

Leo folded his arms and stared at his brother with that look that said, _I know you know the answer to this one, just think a moment._

Oh. Right. "Except we're grounded and have to be home by midnight."

Donnie golf-clapped.

Leo continued. "Look at your map. Go to the area outlined on the map. It'll light up when you're in the right spot. Look all around the lit-up area. Take your time. Look really, really hard, Mikey."

"Right! Thorough searching!" Mike mock-saluted. "If I find the phone, I call you guys and meet here, right?"

"No. You keep looking. There's no guarantee that any phone you find is exactly the one we're looking for. Keep it in your pouch and look for any others. Bring back all of them that you find."

April raised her hand. Leo narrowed his eyes but nodded. "Yes?"

"Just leave them alone, or do we break them?"

"Leave them alone. Donnie needs to look through them to see if any of them are the one we want. Monday night, we'll drop anything we find that isn't our target at the lost and found."

He looked around at his siblings. "Any other questions?"

Mike and April both raised their hands.

"...that are non-Dune related?"

Both hands went down.

"Okay. You have your orders." But Leo paused, glanced at Raph, and raised a brow ridge. _Wait on me._ "Get to work."

Michelangelo gave April a light slap on the back of the head. "Tag! You're it!"

She shrieked her indignation and flailed her arms about, missing as he easily dodged her punches. She at least had the good grace to shut her mouth as they descended to ground level and bolted into the park, flowing unseen from shadow to shadow as only they had been taught. Donatello shrugged at his brothers and followed after, giving them enough room to play without letting them get too far out of sight.

* * *

"'Sup?" Raph asked, curious.

"Can you keep an eye on the little guys and search at the same time?" Leo asked seriously. "I don't want that… that _loon_ in the hockey mask coming around again and finding either of them alone. I don't mind them helping, but I think you, Donnie, and I are probably going to be the most efficient searchers out there, and I don't want them getting hurt because they were too busy playing and we were too busy looking around."

Raphael's golden eyes hardened. "Fucker owes us," he growled.

"If you see him, don't kill him. But I won't scold you for punching him, if you get the opportunity." Getting their pictures taken by the weird guy was bad enough, but it hadn't made either Leo or Raph quite as angry as him breaking April's tooth. And, all unspoken, Leo had the impression that Raph felt just as guilty about letting one of the little ones get hurt as Leo did.

Raph slammed his right fist into the center of his left palm. "If I see him near the babies, all bets are off."

"...use some discretion, Raph. Your first job is keep the kids safe."

"Whatever." Raph waved Leo off, heading for the edge of the park.

"I mean it, Raph. Don't let the little ones get hurt because you decided to act like a hot-head."

Raphael casually flipped him off and disappeared into the shadows. Leo shook his head and followed. Hopefully, they'd find the stupid phone tonight and be done with the whole issue. Turtle luck didn't seem to be on their side, but who knew. Maybe fortune would favor the foolish.


	9. Only Words Bleed Inside These Pages

**CHAPTER 9 - Only Words Bleed Inside These Pages**

Mike supposed that Leo expected April and him to split up to search their parts of the grid. Well, that wasn't happening. When she started to turn left, Mikey grabbed April's hand and dragged her behind him. She didn't give more than a token protest before following him into a large thicket.

"This is boring," April said. She pushed her bangs out of her face and looked around, unsure how they were supposed to find anything in this undergrowth. She gave a little kick to a pile of leaves and other detritus. "How do we find anything, anyway?"

Mike pulled out his phone and opened the map. A small square glowed yellow, indicating they were inside the search area Donnie had assigned to him. "Look." He showed April the square and zoomed in, getting a rough outline of the area. "Start here and look really close for anything on the ground. We go up, we go right, we go down, we go left. We just keep doing that until we finish the square, see?" He beamed at her. "Easy, right?"

"Boring," she muttered. "I think Leo's mad at me."

"Mad at _you_? Nah." He waved the idea off. "He loves you."

"I'm kind of the reason we lost the phone."

"Nope." Mike bent over and shined his flashlight at a bald spot in the grass. A silver glint reflected back at him. It turned out to be a crushed soda can, but they were off to a good start. "He's mad at the dude who hit you."

He glanced at April. She unconsciously rubbed the bruised side of her mouth, running her tongue over the anchored tooth. "The dude threw it when I jumped on him. If I hadn't done that, maybe Leo could've gotten the phone off of him."

"You're fine, babe." Mike looked around carefully, trying to spot any signs of humans or other turtles in the area, before grabbing April's hand and dragging her under what was either a tall bush or a short tree. He couldn't tell in the dark, and, quite frankly, he didn't care.

April ducked when he did and slid under beside Mike, but didn't sound very impressed. "When Leo figures out we're not looking, he's gonna whip us both."

"He's not gonna whip us." Mike lowered his voice to a whisper and peered out into the darkness. "Hey, Kitten? You see any of 'em around?"

April pushed leaves and branches aside to peer out into the darkness. "Nope. I don't see anybody."

The night was dark and deep, even to April, who had superior night vision. There was a light breeze that stirred the treetops. They heard something scampering, but the sound echoed, so neither of them could pinpoint where it was. Off in the distance, some dog barked. There was the faintest trace of a siren. There were lighted paths just beyond the tree line, and the pair could hear someone's sneakers on the gravel.

April dropped her head onto Michelangelo's shoulder. "If Leo finds us hiding here, he's going to be pissed," she said.

"Nah. Leo loves us best." Mike wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, letting her leech some of the heat from his body. "So."

"So?"

"So…" He took one last look around to make sure the coast was clear, then dug into the sack he wore on his belt and fetched out a pack of Camel No. 9s and a lighter. He was trying to pay attention to lighting a cigarette, but Mike could _feel_ April watching him. When the damn thing didn't light yet again, Mike rolled his eyes and poked her in the shoulder. "Turn around," he said around the cigarette between his lips.

She pouted at him, but turned around so her back was to him. Of course, now he got the thing to light on one try. "You can look now."

April resettled herself beside Mikey, pressing her arm and shoulder against his. Rather than fighting with the lighter again, he used his own cigarette to clumsily light one for her and passed it over to her.

April hadn't quite gotten the hang of smoking. The first long draw left her choking and gasping. With great patience, Mike rubbed April's back and pulled her close, giving her a chance to get used to the smoke before burning down his own. She acclimated quickly, and the choking subsided.

"Donnie's gonna have a conniption," April said after taking another draw.

Mike shrugged. "He needs something to bitch about, or else he's not happy. Raph's behaving lately, so Donnie needs to pick on us until he screws up."

Michelangelo couldn't keep a note of disappointment out of his voice. Raphael wasn't supposed to be a goody-two-shoes. He was _cool_. He was supposed to be the one pushing Leonardo out of the way and doing his own thing. Mike liked following Raph around, even though it bothered his older brother sometimes, just because he liked seeing what Raph was into and how he got away with things. He didn't quite feel brave enough to imitate Raphael all the time, but he had no problem admitting that he'd like to be as brave as Raph sometimes.

April, he knew, had a very mild crush on Raph, tempered only by her crush on Donatello. Raph was bad-ass, but Donnie was the only one who didn't treat Mike and April like babies. Don might talk over their heads sometimes, but if one of the kids asked him a question, he'd answer without saying, "You won't get it. Go play." Raphael sometimes ignored them and sometimes chased them off.

Mike thought Donnie was too much like Leonardo's shadow sometimes. As far as he was aware, Donnie never had a rebellious phase. He was pretty much the peacekeeper, particularly when Raph and Leo butted heads. Still, if Mike decided to do something dumb, and Donnie knew about it, he'd at least let Mike try it (even if the attempt ended in disaster), whereas Leo and Raph would put a stop to it before Mike could get anywhere.

April found a twig and started tracing random patterns in the dirt with one end. "Raph smokes. Nobody gets on him about it."

"Everybody gets on him about it. Leo just tries not to start a fight around us."

"Then how come you know about it and I don't?"

Mike grinned. "I don't cat nap." He gave his baby sister a light noogy and wrapped his arm back around her, pulling her close. "Napping's, like, part of your religion. Or something."

"It is not!"

"Is, too! You spend all your time during the day sleeping."

"You spend all your time watching dumb old movies from the 1950s!"

Mike put on an afronted look. "I'll have you know those are some of the best, most cheesiest, most awesomest horror movies out there." He stuck his tongue out at her. "You're just mad 'cause I laughed when 'War of the Worlds' scared you!"

April play-hit his shoulder, pulling the swat and her claws. "Those special effects are scary! And the aliens were scary!"

"They were scary right up until they showed the alien - then they were pretty pathetic. Still," he took a long drag on his cigarette. "The director was pretty smart. You only saw the alien once, and only for a minute. Then it disappeared and you never saw anything except its foot at the end. It would've been scarier if you never saw the alien, just an outline."

April leaned forward, listening closely, and Mike dredged up every memory he could from reading about film-making techniques, giving her a run-down on some of the great movie moments where audiences had to use their imaginations to supply the monsters. "The shark in 'Jaws.' The alien in 'Alien.' The Robert Wise version of 'The Haunting.' When you can't see something…"

Mike pulled April tight against him, leaning down and dropping his voice to a whisper. "Look around. It's dark out, and nobody's around but us two, right?"

(High above them, in a cluster of branches in a nearby tree, Raphael smirked to himself and leaned back, taking a moment to relax and have a Marlboro himself. Babysitting the little guys took precedence over finding the cell phone, and who was Raph to deny them a chance for a little fun before they had to go back to boring work? Still, he kept an eye out for the asshole in the hockey mask, and kept half an ear on the kids, just to make sure they didn't get up to too much trouble.)

"I know you can see more than me," Mike continued, whispering. "But it's still _so_ dark. You can hardly see anything at all in some spots. And there's nobody walking by. We might just be the last two people on earth."

He watched her pupils dilate as she let herself get sucked into his little fantasy. "Anything at all could be out there." His voice was hardly more than a breath now, and the sounds of the city had faded to a soft background hum that April could barely distinguish from the white noise of the wind in the trees. She leaned heavily on Mike's side, peering out between the bush branches into the still darkness.

The wheels in Mike's brain were turning fast. He changed lanes and breathed to her, "Know what Donnie says?"

"What?" It came out almost as a croak.

"Donnie says," Mike whispered, "that if aliens did come to Earth, they'd be more likely to try to eat us than to make friends. Because Earth has resources, and every time people go out from their home lands, it's to get resources. So that movie was right. If aliens ever do come here…"

He trailed off, mentally counting down from twenty, letting them both sit and soak up the silence.

_Five…_

_Four…_

_Three…_

_Two…_

_One…_

"RAWR!" Mike yelled, and April squeaked like a dog toy and started slapping her brother silly. Despite the attack on his person, Michelangelo continued to fake-eat his sister, grabbing her arms and legs and pretending to chomp down on her. "Tasty human!"

"You _jerk! _You _bitch!_" April yelled, flinging her arms and legs at her brother until he finally fell back on his shell, laughing his fool head off, and cried, "Uncle! Uncle!"

She gave him a solid punch in the lower plastron - pulling the punch without doing any real damage, but since she was perilously close to tender parts, Mike got the message and dropped hands to protect his crotch. "And my cigarette went out! You _bully!_"

"You were barely smoking it anyway," Mike said, though he didn't have much room to talk. They'd been spending most of their hiding time chatting, rather than smoking. His cigarette still being lit, Mike took a few minutes ("Turn around." "Really, Mike?" "Shush and do it!" "Fine, fine…") to relight hers and hand it back over.

April managed to take a longer drag on the cigarette without coughing her lungs out. "Hey, Mikey?" There was… a sort of softness in her voice that hadn't been there when the two of them had been playing. In fact, she had this way of not quite looking at him that made Michelangelo's guts knot. Whatever was on her mind, it was going to be uncomfortable. "Remember what Splinter said about… when he said… You know. 'I'm not going to be here forever.'"

He found it easier to watch his own toes than to address her directly. That knotted feeling tightened, making it hard for him to draw in enough breath to smoke. "Yup."

"...when Splinter dies, what happens to us?" Her voice was very small and high-pitched. She sounded about five years younger than she was.

A few million ideas ran through his head in response, none of which were very good. A hazy memory of fire irritated his mind and made him feel a little sick. How long could they hide in the dark? Even the spring and summer, when they could escape into the city, required they go out at night and remain forever in shadows. Who could live like that?

The alien thing was less scary.

Splinter kept their home warm and bright. He tucked Mike and April in at night and would sing to them when they had a tough time falling asleep. If April had bad dreams, he'd let them both bring their futons into his room and sleep by his back wall. If Mike got hurt in practice, he pulled them both aside afterward and told them stories while he bandaged the boy up.

Mike dug his heel into the dirt. Sure, they practiced all the time, and knew enough martial arts to defend themselves, but there were a lot more humans out there than there were mutant turtles or kitties. The world felt very, very large, and he felt incredibly small sometimes.

Then there was warmth against his carapace and Mike shut his eyes, leaning back until his shell clacked against plastron. "Hi, Raph."

"Geezuz, you two," Raphael muttered. April turned around and clambered into his lap, grinding out her half-smoked cigarette in the dirt and hiding her face in her older brother's neck. "Awright, awright…" The big turtle sloped his arm around Mike's shoulder, pulling the smaller against him and making soothing shushing noises, or, well… as soothing as his gruff voice could get. "I can't leave yas alone for a minute, can I?"

Mike sighed and put his own cigarette out. "Are you mad at us?" There were a thousand things Raph could be mad about. They weren't doing their job searching. They were smoking (even Raphael succumbed to hypocracy from time to time). They were hiding from their brothers. Maybe he'd be mad because Raph sometimes just got mad. Mike hung his head, waiting for a lecture, yelling, frustration, something.

Raph didn't bother with any of that. Instead, he scooted so his carapace leaned against the tree trunk and dragged the little ones with him, April cuddled against him like she was still a tiny baby, Mike tucked up to Raph's side, under his strong arm.

April spoke lowly, her face tucked against Raphael's neck, but both turtles heard her quite clearly. "Who's gonna take care of us?"

"What, Ah'm chopped liver?" Raph asked, keeping his own voice down, but making the tone light. "Yas got three of us, yanno. Ya think we're gonna, what, leave yas on somebody's doorstep or sumpthin?"

Mike fidgeted. "Who's gonna take care of you, though?"

Raphael peered hard into the darkness, left, then right, and only when he was satisfied neither Don nor Leo was anywhere nearby did he drop a light kiss on Mike's temple, hugging his little brother tight. "You two. We take care'v each other. Right? You plannin' on runnin' away from home?"

"No."

"Well, there ya go. Ya don't got nothin ta worry about. Nobody's gonna leave yas behind. Nobody's gonna let you go, neither." He pitched his deep voice low, speaking softly, an oddity for Raphael. The little guys burrowed into him. "We'll take care of ya. You don't got nothin to be scared about. Not aliens, not humans, nothin. Okay?"

Mike closed his eyes, soaking up Raphael's warmth.

Raphael said, "I won't let nothin happen to either one of ya. Promise. So… hey. Hey, Kitten, shhh, don't do that."

April made a hiccuping little sniffle and scrubbed at her eyes with her fist. Mike stretched an arm out, running his fingers through her flame-red hair, while Raphael stroked her back soothingly. "Sokay, Kit. Father's not goin nowhere any time soon. He's healthy, and he ain't as old as ya think sometimes, yanno?"

Raphael glanced down at Mike and cupped his chin, making the little turtle look up at him. The younger boy's eyes were wet, but it was harder to tell behind his mask. Raph pulled him close, bumped his beak against Mike's, pressed his forehead to the little turtle's. "C'mon. Leo's gonna ride my ass if he thinks we ain't been workin."

He gave the babies a minute to collect themselves, making a mental note to jump in sooner, if this cropped up again. Really, they had nothing to worry about! They always went out of their way to stay hidden from the outside world, and Splinter was in excellent health. He blamed their fears on the coming winter and the family's impending hibernation. Staying underground for five months made them all feel a little claustrophobic, and put a lot of pressure on the two little guys. He decided to double-down and find that phone tonight, so they'd have a little more freedom before lockdown. He'd take the kids out, have a game of tag, maybe help April get a few more good shots of the city…

Then the kids could put their fears out of their minds.

* * *

Irma powered down her Gopro and smiled to herself, watching the trio climb out of the bushes and vanish in the darkness. Where the large one came from she didn't know. She'd only just caught sight of the two little ones, and if they hadn't parked themselves under that tree, she'd never have been able to keep up with them. From this distance, she couldn't hear anything they were saying, but it was unlikely that they were speaking any human language, not if they were what she thought they were.

She tucked the camera into her purse; there was no point trying to find them again tonight. Once the big one showed up, there was no keeping track of them.

That was alright, though. She had enough evidence - grainy footage in the dark, sure, but good enough to confront TCRI with. Tomorrow she'd bring the video to their attention and demand an explanation. Tomorrow she'd get an interview, start writing her article, and start making sense of the company's illicit activities for the general public.

Tomorrow was going to be an exciting day.


	10. Takes To the Sky Like a Bird in Flight

**CHAPTER 10 - Takes To the Sky Like a Bird In Flight And Who Will Be Her Lover?**

_Sunday, September 18, 2072 - 2:15 AM ET_

April dreamed a nonsense dream, as most people are wont to do, when a gentle shake startled her out of sleep. She jerked and drew in a sharp breath.

A three-fingered hand pressed to her lips, preventing her from crying out. Her pupils dilated completely, leaving a thin rim of green around the black centers of her eyes.

Mike's face came into focus. He kept his hand over her mouth and raised a finger to his lips, reminding her to be silent.

April's heart slowed as she came more awake. Mike gestured for her to follow him and slipped from her cubby with ninja silence. She reached for her robe but got the back of her hand lightly slapped as Mike leaned in and gestured for her again.

Perplexed, April threw off the bedclothes and slipped from her floor pallet, self-consciously aware that she was walking around in a night dress she'd properly outgrown six months ago. She fought back a giggle and followed Michelangelo between the cubbies where their older brothers snored obliviously. Mike stopped briefly to fetch his phone, then grabbed her hand in his and led her to the dojo.

His hand was strong and warm, much larger than her own, and had callouses from hard use and regular training with the nunchaku. April's own palm got a little sweaty with nerves.

The two little ones might occasionally wake in the night, but that always resulted in them waking one of their older brothers and sleeping with them, or else waking Splinter and sleeping on the floor in his room. This sneaking about in their home while everyone else was asleep was new. April thought it was deliciously exciting, but she had to wonder what Mike was planning.

Mike opened the door and pulled her ahead of him, giving April a gentle push inside between her shoulder blades. He took a moment to sneak back to the room and make sure everyone else was still asleep. He didn't join April in the dojo until he was satisfied. When he did, he closed the door tightly, leaving them in the pitch darkness.

Rather than searching the wall for the overhead lights, Mike felt around on the floor next to the door. He produced an electric lantern that gave off enough light to maneuver while leaving the pair draped in a curtain of darkness. He carried the lamp to the center of the dojo. "C'mere," he whispered, setting the lamp on the ground.

April gave the hem of her night dress a tug, but had to trust the darkness to hide most of her legs. She followed Mike and squatted down next to where he sat.

She didn't see the way Mike looked at her legs out of the corner of his eye for the brief second they were fully lit. She also missed the tiny smile he wore as he looked them up and down before turning back to his phone.

"You feeling better?" He pulled April close and sat with his arm around her shoulders, fiddling with his cell phone. "I was kinda worried about you." He slid his thumb over his phone screen, but his blue eyes were locked on her face. "I wanted to ask when we got home, but I didn't want to hafta explain everything to Leo or Dad, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," April shrugged. His stare was pretty intense. She looked down at her hands and, again, tugged at the hem of her gown. "Better, yeah. Raph said if I had bad dreams I could sleep in his room tonight, but I was sleeping good." Then she grinned at him. "Before you woke me up."

"Yeah, well." Lately, Michelangelo wondered if the Universe were conspiring against them. They never had any alone time, of course, but that was the problem with living in a converted underground bunker. There was very little space, with four boys and a young girl all piled on top of each other.

Leonardo once told Mike that Splinter had been thinking about them moving, but hadn't said anything definite about it. That had been months ago, and nobody had heard anything more about it, so they had all come to terms with living down here for five months of lock-down, and having nearly no privacy. No quiet time. No… personal time… with April.

Without looking at his phone, Mike tapped the screen, and the spoken start of the 1975 concert version of "Rhiannon" started playing. "Come dance with me," he whispered, putting the phone on the floor in front of him. He stood, taking her hand, and leading her just outside the ring of light made by the lantern.

April was glad of the dim surroundings hiding her blush. She followed Mike obediently, letting him settle his hand on her hip, her own hand on his shoulder. He pulled her very, very close, and she felt the back of her neck starting to sweat. Her right hand in his left was damp, but Mike either didn't notice or didn't care.

_This is a song about a Welsh witch_, Stevie Nicks declared as the first strains of the music began to play.

April didn't remember the last time she and Mike had been alone - _really_ alone. Tonight, hiding under the bushes, they'd smoked and snuggled and played like they always did, but Mike must have had it in the back of his mind that one of the others was probably watching over them, because he hadn't talked about anything _too_ personal.

It wasn't very fair. If the older boys wanted some solitude, Splinter didn't object to them taking short walks or scouting the rainwater culvert not far from their home, and if they didn't want to leave, they could lose themselves in their various projects. Mike could escape into his paintings sometimes, but his time to use the garage was limited. Raph, Don, and Leo needed the space to work on their various commissions, and the family needed the money, so either he shared his space or he gave it up to give the older turtles room.

_Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night_

_And wouldn't you love to love her?_

Neither she nor Mike were allowed to leave without an escort, and April's photography still required Donatello's help if she wanted her pictures developed properly. The guys tried very hard not to be all up in her things, but the tiny section of their "sleeping room" that was blocked out just for her felt smaller and smaller every day.

And Mike and April _never_ had any alone time anymore. If Raph wasn't following them around at a distance, Leo was right up in their personal space. And while Don didn't baby them the way the other two did, he could be intrusive any time the youngest siblings found themselves on their own.

_She rules her life like a bird in flight_

_And who will be her lover?_

April suddenly realized that, for once, they were completely alone.

No wonder Mike had woken her up and snuck her in here!

_All your life you've never known_

_A woman taken by the wind_

"We have to do this again, soon," she whispered.

Mike raised his brow at her. "We're doing this _now_. Pay attention." Lately, more than wanting his own space, he'd wanted April's undivided attention. Her little crushes on Don and Raph weren't too bad, but why had Raph had to come to their rescue tonight? Why couldn't Mike have manned up enough to comfort April by himself? At the time, he'd appreciated Raphael's presence, but now he was kicking himself for letting Raph get between them yet again.

_Would you stay if she promised you Heaven_

_And would you ever win?_

Mike liked being able to hold April. To dance with her. To move his body very close to hers.

_She is like a cat in the dark_

_And then she is the darkness_

April blushed hotly to find herself pulled tight against Michelangelo's chest, her cheek turned to rest on his plastron.

_She rules her life like a fine skylark_

_And when the sky is starless_

April was quite a bit shorter than Mike, so he had to stop dancing and push her away slightly to bend down and press his wide mouth to her sweet lips.

_Once in a million years a lady like her rises_

_Oh no, Rhiannon, you cry, but then she's gone_

_Your life knows no answer, your life knows no answer_

April kissed warmly and gently, and she tasted of mint toothpaste.

Mike kissed with a forceful clumsiness April found appealing, and he tasted like cinnamon chewing gum.

There was a bit of awkwardness with the differences in their mouth shapes, and Mike's tongue got a little too close to April's elongated canines, but he barely felt the bite, and completely forgot it as he melted into her, or she into him, whichever.

They broke apart, only to kiss again, dancing forgotten.

_Rhiannon_

_Rhiannon_

Mikey wrapped an arm around her waist, his free hand cupping the back of April's head, fingers threading through her hair. April traced her nails down the scutes of Mike's plastron. They kissed with an exuberance that made up for their lack of practice.

When they finally broke apart, the two of them giggled quietly. They could each see the blush on the other's face.

"Wow," April whispered. "I've got to stop sleeping at night - hanging out with you is a lot more fun!"

Mike beamed a stupid grin that April found strangely charming. "So… you know you're not _really_ my sister. Right?"

"Yeah." She ground her toe into the wooden floor, suddenly shy. "Well. You're not _really_ my brother, either. So…"

"So… you're okay with… this?" He gestured between the two of them with his index finger.

"I'd have hit you if I weren't," April assured him. "And Splinter gave me special lessons."

Mike's right brow ridge went up. "What kind of 'special lessons?'"

"How to get away from any guys pulling unwanted moves on me." She beamed brightly. "_He_ called it, 'beating boys back with an ugly stick.' I need to show you some of the funky kicks I learned!"

Michelangelo covered his mouth to muffle his laugh, then reached for April again. She liked Mike's assertiveness. She liked the way he held her close while he was kissing her, the way his mouth softened on hers, the way she could feel his heart pounding behind his plastron through her thin nightshirt.

Mike forgot about the claustrophobic closeness that always surrounded his family and felt more free standing here in the dojo with April than he ever had running the rooftops of New York City.

_All your life you've never seen_

_A woman taken by the sky_

_Would you stay if she promised you heaven_

_Oh would you even try?_

Eventually, April pulled away from Mike and tugged nervously on her dress. "I really have to get some sleep," she whispered. "If I'm not good at practice tomorrow, Splinter's going to disown me."

Mike's grin fell a little. "Yeah." He gave a cheerful shrug then. "I should at least be in bed, but I'm not gonna sleep." He licked his lips nervously. "You wanna… do this again tomorrow night?"

"This is kind of…" April flushed, smiling despite her attempts to control herself. "Kind of a date, isn't it?"

"Kind of." Mike looked around, annoyed that it was the same old dojo they saw every day of the year. "I wish I could take you out someplace."

"Well, this is good." April grabbed his hand and stood on tip-toe to kiss the very end of his beak. "I like it. You picked a good date for us. So… yeah. Tomorrow. Same time?"

Internally, Mike danced and spiked an imaginary football. Externally, he smiled that idiotic smile. "Yeah, same time. I'll wake you up."

Neither made a move to leave. Eventually, April leaned against him to exchange one last kiss before slipping out on her bare feet and heading back through the dark to her cubby in their room.

Mike turned off the music, put the lantern back in place, and gave her a minute to get settled in her cubby before following her out. He hummed the tail end of the refrain to himself as he slipped through the great room to their room and bundled himself into his cubby and onto his futon.

He lay awake for an hour, grinning at the dark ceiling like a fool. Stevie Nicks cheered him on in his mind.

_Dreams unwind_

_Love's a state of mind_


End file.
